All Hail the King
by glenarvon
Summary: The king is dead and the throne has been vacant too long. Jason tries and fails to return to his normal life. In the end, Rook Islands is the only place where he can be who he is, if he can prove himself once and for all.
1. Halcyon Days

**Warning:** Death, violence, drugs, swearing and some mentions of sex. If any of this bothers you, you probably shouldn't be anywhere near Far Cry 3.

* * *

**ALL HAIL THE KING**

**by moondusted**

* * *

_"It's too late to correct it," said the Red Queen: "when you've once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences."_

_— Through the Looking Glass, Louis Carroll_

* * *

**Chapter 1: Halcyon Days**

He leaned his head into the glass of the window until he thought he could feel the resistance grinding all the way into his skull, the cool glass numbing a small patch of his brain. Outside, the grey dirt on grey walls was pitched nearly black in the darkness of the subway tunnel, blurring together as it rushed past.

He had lost his driver's license two weeks before to a reckless driving charge, forcing him to ride the metro to work and back. Liza had thought she did him a service when she made him promise to take it seriously, instead of just driving anyway, as he would have done. In truth, the quiet moments when he was locked in the limbo of the train ride just gave him more time to think. Or rather, more time for his thoughts to run in circles.

Liza had made him go to a shrink, too, but he had managed only a few sessions. The thing was, he didn't _feel _insane, which probably was one of the first clues that he must be. There were no nightmares, no flashbacks, just a low-level anxiety dogging him through his days. He was tense, always tense, still waiting for that bullet to the back of the head, the knife on his throat, or the low thud as a grenade landed much too close.

The city streets were not the same thing, even if LA wasn't the safest city in the world by any stretch of the imagination. No one here would give him a fight.

For a few, brief days after coming home, he had tried, _truly_ tried to find himself again, to be who he had been before Rook Islands. He had made an effort, for his mother and on his brother's grave and to make amends to Riley for hurting him in Hoyt's basement. He had tried to fix things with Liza, somehow, but he didn't know where to even start.

She wanted to talk, but that didn't help. Their memories didn't match, the colours were all wrong, distorting the truth. He had thought she had seen him, at some point earlier on, but for her, Rook was a fever dream and it evaporated when they came home. So they went through the motions of trying to repair what was left of their relationship and were, both of them, almost relieved when they failed and had an excuse to let each other go.

They still kept in touch. At least, Liza would call him and talk and he would listen, mind wandering off despite himself.

He had tried. Tried to sometimes ask Keith how he was doing. Tried to take Ollie to the beach and keep him sober for a day. Tried to support Daisy by going to her competitions. Tried to take an interest in Riley's career.

Tried.

Failed.

Probably. Didn't quite manage to care.

The truth was, they had all come back changed and they had all thought they could pretend otherwise, slip back into their old lives and their old selves. Reclaim everything and pick up where they had left off. They all failed in their own way and each other's presence was just another reminder of how broken they had become.

Jason himself, he went back to drifting. Like before, obviously, but he was under no more illusions. He had no patience anymore for most of the jobs he would have jumped at before. He was too on edge, too angry still and his body seemed to be running at higher revolutions than others, craving more than just a sedate gym workout.

Keith had got him work as a bouncer, but it was ill-fitting at the best of times. At first glance, it made a kind of sense. There was at least _some _violence and he wouldn't have to bother with being nice. On second glance, however, Jason learned quickly that you didn't get hired as a bouncer because you could kill half a dozen men in under a minute. You got hired because you looked intimidating to _prevent _violence from breaking out in the first place. He didn't have that kind of looks and there were too few people here who would know how to read what was in his eyes.

He could tell his boss was working up to firing him, it was just a question of time. And then? Ah, well, and then something else would come along.

The train stopped harshly in the station and his head bounced, once, on the glass, jolting him briefly from his thoughts. He cast a long glance around the carriage. It was late, but not so late partygoers made an effort to get the last ride home and the carriage was mostly empty. A group of drunken teenagers had got on and slouched into a corner.

He paid them no heed, looked away from the glare of the neon lights and back into the black outside, accelerating as the metro picked up speed. He wondered what it'd be like to smash into that merciless concrete wall, head on and without brakes.

* * *

It starts.

_Hey, you, wimpy-looking dude, you got some cash on you?_

It doesn't immediately register. He'll answer to a great many things, but this one doesn't stick, goes right by him as he walks along the edge of the platform for the exit. The lights briefly dim, then come back at full strength. It seems the more interesting observation.

He still picks out the footsteps on the tiles behind him, catching up. All that's missing is the low growl of a wolf-pack as it advances on him, stalking him.

_Hey! _

Close by his ear and one of the teenagers steps in front of him, blocking his way, grinning. He has seen better bloodlust in rabid dogs, this is just a weak imitation of madness.

But he's starved, perhaps a little, and something flares in his throat at the recognition. And he thinks he should be conflicted about it. He lowers his head demurely and steps around the kid. Knows, already, he won't be allowed. There is no instinct here, they knew shit about the jungle, after all.

_Where the hell you think you're going, princess? _

And another, _Got some cash? Because you better hand it over._

And another, just laughing.

And the last, the mistake, closing in bodily from the front and the side, boxing him in. He tilts his head, meets the gaze of the nearest kid plaintively. His vision seems to sharpen, it almost hurts his mind in its clarity.

His heart beats hard, like its the first time in a long while it moved at all.

A hand goes for the collar of his jacket, tucks derisively and the leer becomes a little better in the face of Jason's misleading passivity.

_Do you think he's going to try to fight us? _

Laughter and another hand, going for his shoulder from behind. _Seriously?_

The violence kicks in, sudden and sharp. So much of it, a _tide _of it crashing around his ears.

He catches the hand and twists it, throws his body in it and hears the low, grinding ugly crush of breaking bone. The scream that follows barely registers. Another comes at him, enraged and so suddenly so scared — he can _smell _it on them — but with some small measure of skill.

Not enough, not nearly enough as the lights flicker again. And Jason brings them both around, like a dance, but faster and cut brutally short. He crawls a hand up along the kid's neck, through gelled hair and along shivering tendons.

He holds him and then he crashes him into the unyielding solidity of a pillar. It takes a lot to smash a human skull in. Tough motherfuckers, really. The kid begins to scream, but it gargles away in a wailing sob as his mouth fills with blood. He falls away from the pillar and into Jason.

Jason picks him back up and he goes limp in his hands, body already twitching from some brain damage. Jason smashes him into the pillar again, once, twice to the wet crunching of bone on cracking tile, until the skull finally gives way and the smattering, spraying blood is joined by thick pieces of brains.

The sobbing stops and the kid is deadweight in his hands, smelling no longer of fear but sickly sweet blood and sour urine.

Jason steps to the side, where he sees nothing but a shadow and puts his boot to somebody's knee and brings his elbow down on his neck. Someone else makes a last-ditch useless grip for his arm from behind and he simply snaps his head back, feels his vision jar and blur at the impact, sending a pleasantly sharp ripple of pain through his skull to settle behind his eyes.

It doesn't matter. Pain cannot stop him, can only fuel his anger and he hasn't felt the blood rush in his body in far too long. Dimly, he thinks he should stop. He should not straddle this kid's chest and beat his fist into his face, cutting his knuckles on his teeth as he wails.

He should, at the very least, meet_ some fucking resistance. _

The other rabid dogs beat a hasty retreat, too shocked and frightened to even scream as they run from the station, stumbling on the steps as if the devil was hot on their heels.

But the devil only sits back as his second victim stops its ridiculous struggles. He leans his head back, feels like he's drunk or high or just got off. Released. So fucking good you wouldn't believe.

It ends, and blood is running down his face and wets his lips.

* * *

Later.

The cop looked up from his notepad to study Jason across its rim. Something was on his mind, quite obviously, turning slowly as he tried to put it into words. He gave a short glance down the length of the metro station where the paramedics were still working.

"Have you, uh, had any combat experience?" the cop asked as he looked back at Jason.

Jason considered the question. Considered _lying, _in the face of a fairly obvious truth. "Yes," he said.

He didn't know what had prompted the teenagers to pick on him of all the people who had left the train at the same station. There had been a middle-aged couple and a scrawny elderly man and a group of three young women. All of them, soft targets.

"What sort of experience?"

Earlier, a paramedic had put a blanket over Jason's shoulder before hurrying back to help the others. All in all, Jason didn't think it had been that bad. He looked at the cop, watched him fidget and try to hide it, uncomfortable by the carnage just at the edge of his field of vision.

Jason decided to throw him a bone, "I was on the news."

It took the cop a long minute before the connection finally clicked through. Half a year was more than enough for the headlines to fade from memory. It changed all their life, but for the overwhelming majority of people on the planet, it remained another piece of irrelevant drivel.

"Ah, yeah, Jason Brody, I remember. That hostage thing, right?"

Just one dead man. More a kid, really, and too stupid to tell predator from prey when you were looking right into the beast's eyes. These kids had never been a challenge for couldn't even call it a _fight_ without laughing.

A joke, come of think of it. Funny ha ha, and brain splattered over the dirty tiles of a metro station.

"Yeah," Jason said. The blanket was slipping from his shoulders and he couldn't decide if he should bother to keep a hold of it. He put his chin forward, indicating the paramedics, or his victim, or all of this sorry scene.

"What'll happen?" he asked.

"Don't worry, sir," the cop said, jumping to conclusions without any prompting. "Sounds like pretty obvious self-defence to me. Show up tomorrow to sign your statement."

"Is he going to live?"

The cop looked back over his shoulder again and his skin took on a slightly greener hue. Or it could be just the angle of the light as it changed. You could never tell, with these civilised people. They got queasy over the strangest things.

"Hard to tell, sir," the cop said, mistaking Jason's question for actual concern. "Do you have someone you can call?"

Why would he…? Ah, right. "Yeah."

For some reason, the answer didn't seem to satisfy the cop. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Self-defence, right?"

* * *

He had barely two days before the story hit the tabloids. The headlines were a little unsure of the details and seemed to be making most of it up as they went along. Certainly no journalist had yet bothered to track him down and interview him, but he wasn't sure if that was because they didn't care or because he had managed to hide himself from their view.

In the beginning, it _had _been a good enough story for the newspapers and all the other media. The hostages had even made national television, albeit briefly. Enough for his name to still ring a bell to the cop and enough to warrant another article or two. Innocent people being beaten up happened and every so often, these punks picked the wrong target and got their ass handed to them. It _happened. _Even so, he probably was the most minor of minor celebrities and he could have done even without that much attention.

_"Are you all right?" _Liza's voice came faint. The phone was askew, wedged between his head and the wall of his tiny balcony so he had his hands free to roll a joint.

"Sure."

There was a brief moment of silence while she tried to figure out how to say next what she would inevitably _say next. _

Sex hadn't worked. That was, it _had_ worked in getting him off. It didn't do what he wanted it to, though. Didn't get rid of his anger, didn't calm his nerves, it didn't set him free_._ But Jason was still young enough and possibly juvenile enough and a child of the media generation, to think that it _might_. It had a lot going for it, after all. It could be like in the movies, like he was a game character on some self-destructive, but ultimately stylish streak. It was easy enough to picture it, all darkly romantic like. It had been surprisingly easy to pick up some girl or other, too. _Much _easier than it used to be, almost as if the fact that he wouldn't much care either way made all the difference.

"I read one of the attackers died," Liza finally said. "And another is in the hospital and they don't know if he'll pull through."

"I'm surprised the press got that much right."

The girls he had known, including Liza, they had been different. _Real_ people, with their own stories and their own names. This time, names were a hazy thing, heard only once and immediately forgotten like their faces, or perhaps they just looked different in the morning. Either way, he felt pretty much just as empty when they left as he had the night before when they'd hooked up.

"What happened?" she asked.

He lit up, fished the phone from where it threatened to slip down his neck and leaned back in his flimsy lawn-chair, settling his legs up on the balustrade.

"They were just dumb kids harassing people on the metro," he said, inhaled deeply and got barely a tingle for his troubles. Fucking weak shit. Where the hell did Ollie get his good stuff from?

"You killed them."

The accusation was heavy, crawling out of the speaker.

He had picked up a guy, too, just once, to see if maybe it'd be different. Or rather, the other way around. Some dude had picked _him_ up and Jason had only shrugged. It had even seemed like a good idea for maybe five minutes, until it had clicked through his not entirely sober brain that sex was sex and sex _wasn't working. _

It was never a fight. It was never even a _contest. _

"One of them," he corrected mellowly.

There wasn't anything like a sky visible above, just a diffuse glare caught in the smog and the rather academic assurance of something more beyond its thick layer.

"The cops said it was self-defence," he added for Liza's benefit.

"God, Jason," Liza said. "You don't even care, do you? You killed someone!"

She was right about one thing, let's give her that: he didn't care. He had saved them, all of them — except Grant, of course — but their gratitude had ran out long ago.

"Next time, I'll let them beat me up," Jason agreed. He lacked the energy to put much vitriol in his voice, too much effort for too little gain.

"That's not what it's about," Liza insisted, but he wasn't quite sure of it. "It's that you still behave like you're fighting some damn guerrilla war. I don't know the details, but I know you didn't need to kill anyone. But I think you wanted to. And you don't have to do that anymore, you are _home." _

The pot dulled the jagged edges of his mind and the thoughts spun slower. There was still the sense of urgency, a drive to be somewhere else than here, do something other than lean through the chair into the wall, but for once it was fine to just wait it out for a little while.

"Look, Liz, I don't know what you want me to say."

He was pretty sure he had already said everything he thought might work a gazillion times before. He had started saying this stuff on Daisy's fucking boat, when Rook wasn't even completely out of sight yet.

"Is that a serious question?" she asked, still concerned still, somehow too close to him to just leave him behind. But she was angry, too. "You need help, Jason, you don't have to do it all on your own."

"Is this about the shrink again?"

She had expected that, he could tell, but her displeasure still came through loud and clear. Or would have, but the joint was doing its job better than he had hoped.

"There are plenty of other psychiatrists out there. Better ones."

"I don't need any help," he said. "Not that kind of help."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He took a long, last drag of the joint and chased the feeling of the smoke as it burned down his throat and into his lungs. He closed his eyes.

"Jason?"

He snapped his eyes back open. The glare of the city had changed, it had gained texture and it's own beat, an oversized heart made of smoke, bleeding for the city below.

"I'm going back," he said and Liza was silent.

No doubt she was just as surprised by it as he was. He didn't even know where that had come from. It wasn't like he had ever even _considered… _What if it was as easy as that? He could shake off this ill-fitting life like a dog coming in from the rain.

For a moment, the thought made him feel giddy in the rush of it. His whole body pulled tight in the anticipation of action. He wanted to go, right now, be on the plane in an hour.

He pulled another deep breath and reminded himself things were never quite so easy. There was no telling how welcoming the Rakyat would be. And neither would drug-trafficking and slaving in the South Pacific have come to a standstill just because two psychos had found exactly the ending they deserved. Someone would have slipped in to fill their shoes.

"You can't," Liza whispered. Her voice was thin, came from much further away than she could possibly be.

Jason wanted to laugh, but didn't, Liza would just think he was crazy. All this time, all these ludicrous attempts to make himself fit in again when the answer had been right in front of him the whole time.

"It solves all our problems," he pointed out reasonably. "You don't have to worry about me and I… right, let's face it, I don't fit here anymore."

"You think I don't have to worry if you go back there?"

"Well, no," he said slowly. He watched the smoke dance in front of his eyes. This was actually better stuff than he had thought. It made him feel calm, at least in the aftermath of his decision. Things seemed set already, carved in stone. He would go back.

He said, "But you wouldn't have to worry about me going on a killing spree."

This time, he did laugh, but he'd be the first to admit it came out as a mirthless chortle. It ruined the smoke ring he had been about to blow.

His words or his laugh had rendered Liza momentarily speechless. He took another drag and blew out a perfect circle of smoke, watched as it slowly dissipated in front of him.

"I'm sorry, Jason," Liza said.

"What?" he asked mildly. "Nothing to be sorry about. It's fine, Liz, I promise."

"It's not _fine_," she insisted and her voice locked up suddenly at the end. "You can't go back. It's safe here. _You _are safe here. You don't have to… do these things anymore. Why don't you understand that?"

He lifted his hand before his face and let the smoke crawl down its length from the glowing tip of the joint in front of him. It was just bright enough to see the edge of the tatau on his arm.

"You've got it backwards," he said, barely speaking to her at all. "I don't want to be safe. It makes me feel weak. Like I'm useless. Stagnating."

_Like I'm dying without a fight and that's a shitty end for a warrior. _

Something rustled on the other end of the line, clothing most likely as she moved and when she spoke again, Liza seemed to have collected herself. Her voice had lost its strange shivering, instead it was laced with determination.

"Are you home? I'm coming over, I'm…"

His feet hit the ground with a force that echoed all the way up through his shins and into his knees. The faint pain shook him back into reality, wiping away some of the lull the joint had wrapped him in.

"No," he said sharply. "No, really, don't. Are you even listening? I've got it under control. It's going to be nice and gentle. I'll say my goodbyes to mom and Riley and the others." He paused for a moment. He could still hear her moving on the other end. "Or I'll leave tonight," he finished and finally she seemed to stop.

It was too easy to picture her pretty face as it pulled a displeased grimace. Shit all he could do about it, though. He really didn't want her trying to talk him out of it. He didn't think there was any way at all to get his reasons across to her. He wouldn't be able to make her see and he wasn't really in the mood to try. It _was _the solution he had been looking for for a good six months, but it was't the solution she had wanted. .

"You said you wanted to be better," Liza insisted. "Was that for nothing?"

_Yes, _he caught himself thinking, but managed to keep it to himself. It wasn't all of the truth, either. It all depended, really, how you were looking at things. He _was_ a pretty shitty human being. If he was conflicted at all, it was because there _was _no conflict. He could _act out _guilt and regret and sorrow over the blood on his hands, he even had himself convinced for a little while of his own remorse. It worked, right up until something happened that scraped it away, a thin layer of useless paint. Certainly, the kid in the metro station hadn't _deserved_ to die just for being a stupid dipshit. He deserved to die for picking a fight with him, however. Tagged-on regret wasn't going to help anyone.

He ground his teeth together, flexing his left hand and chased the slow-burning ache in his sinews all the way into his fingertips, all of them, even the imaginary one.

"Liz," he said quietly and the sound of his own voice was like the distant rumbling of thunder. A growl of old, of another self, of the waking hunter. "Do you even know how easily I could've killed you?"

"Jason…"

He closed his eyes, but the glow beat through his eyelids in bloody red. He needed her off his back, he needed her at peace somehow. If she ended up hating him in the process, it was a small price to pay.

"Or how much I wanted to?" he added, not because it was a lie, but because she still didn't understand the first thing about him and she never would. None of them did. It was strange, to sit here and realise, for the first time with any hint of clarity, just how broken he was. Broken, but not fallen apart for some reason. He remembered the things he should do, the things he should _be. _If he thought hard enough, perhaps he'd even figure out how to glue himself together.

But, _god, _he sometimes dreamed of Liza's white throat in the firelight, glistening with cold sweat, her rapid pulse outlined, her panicked breathing and the endless string of pleas falling from her lips. He still didn't quite know why Citra would force such a choice on him, how she could be so right about him about so many things and still get that one thing so completely wrong.

"I don't know what to say," Liza whispered on the other end of the line. He had almost forgotten she was there. "I don't think I can help you."

"That's the problem," he pointed out. He finished the joint and its glow faded away, the smoke left to poison the beating heart above the city. "I don't need any _helping_. I need you to let me go. That's what'd help me."

He listened to her breathing, but wasn't sure if she was crying or not. Only when she spoke and her voice cracked so badly, could he be sure.

"I'm going to hang up, Jason. Goodbye."

She didn't hang up, though, only was silent for the longest time until he held the phone in front of his face and cut the connection like severing an umbilical cord.

* * *

Another two days later and the cops picked him up. Ostensibly just to ask some questions, but he already knew it wasn't going to be good when they also searched his apartment, pocketed his weed and confiscated his computer, phone and camera.

The camera. The camera was going to be bad. His trusty fucking camera, which had done its service as impromptu binoculars. It documented their holiday in tasteless party fashion, when they had all still been innocent — or alive for that matter. The memories of better days, preserved and never looked at again since.

But there were other pictures on there and they told a different story. Jason had used the camera to map pirate outposts before he took them and there were the occasional _after _pictures, too, from before the Rakyat came to clean up the mess and the bodies still lay where they had fallen, shot or gutted or burned, posing for his triumph. He had pictures of dead sharks and skinned tigers and scattered body parts on the beach at sunset.

"…frankly, it's a little disturbing," the detective was saying from across the table, scrolling through the pictures on the camera more for show than anything, pretending she was seeing them for the first time to get a rise out of him.

She would have to wait a little longer for it, though, because he was barely paying attention to her. He was busy backtracking through the twisting paths of his own mind and memory, looking for the mistake that had landed him here in the first place.

It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for the cops to launch an investigation of his activities now. There had been a couple of tense moments right after their return, but nothing on this scale. Everyone had treated them either as poor victims or heroic, well, _heroes _for escaping the way they had. They weren't under suspicion for anything, at least not as far as Jason knew.

"Does that silent and stoic thing work for you?" the detective asked and actually managed to gain his attention momentarily. At some point, she had put the camera away to focus entirely on him.

He met her gaze calmly and she said, "Tell me again about the incident in the metro station."

"I got harassed by a bunch of kids."

She arched an eyebrow delicately, "And you bash one of their skulls in and put another in a coma."

"Your colleague said it was self-defence."

"It technically is. We've got enough witnesses that say so," she agreed. "But in context with your history and the pictures on your cam, well… And let's not forget your unsteady lifestyle. You lost your driver's licence. You take drugs. You just quit the forth job you've had since you got back from Thailand. You stopped seeing a psychologist so I'm guessing whatever trauma you sustained has gone untreated."

He could tell what she was getting it, it was practically written in flaming letters between them, but for some reason she preferred to keep playing. When her jab at his presumed traumatised state failed to get a rise out of him, she launched for another angle.

"You booked a flight to Bangkok," she said.

"Yes," he agreed. And right about now, he wished he could have found an earlier one, or that he hadn't promised to show up at his mother's for dinner tonight. He could be long gone by now, but since he was still here, he would have to put on a better show than this. He pulled himself together, looked back at the detective and attempted a vague smile. "I'm going on vacation. Like I'm, you know, a normal person."

"It's one-way to an interesting destination"

"I don't know how long I'll be staying and I still have friends there."

He shook his head, managed to pin her with his gaze and shut her up just long enough to derail her entire, planned line of questioning.

"Look," he said reasonably, "I agreed to answer your questions, didn't I? You didn't charge me with anything and that pot, Jesus, just fine me and be done with it. In other words, I guess I can go whenever I like. Unless there is something you want to share with me?"

She pulled a face as if she felt the sudden, blinding onset of a terrible migraine and knew exactly who to blame for it. She picked over her words carefully, like chewing on a mouthful of pebbles when she said, "There is some indication that you might pose a danger to others as well as yourself."

And the cat was out of the bag. It really left only the question who had put it there in the first place.

Jason leaned forward, hunter instinct telling him just how far to go so she felt the threat, but couldn't act on it. He dropped his voice just a little and put a rough emphasis on every word. "_Are_ you charging me with something?"

She had tensed when he moved, alarmed but didn't seem nearly as intimidated as she should be. Civilised people, they never knew what stared them in the face.

"No," she admitted. "But you won't be needing that ticket, I'm afraid. Please don't leave the city. We'll be keeping your things, of course. And you'll be fined for possession."

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand, clearly frustrated by his refusal to follow her script. He wasn't quite sure _what _she had expected of him, though, that he'd lose it right in front of her? Attack her and validate her suspicions for her?

He took his leave smiling, but only because he needed to show his teeth. The liberation he had felt at his decision, the assurance of the ticket in his pocket, all of it shot to hell. From one moment to the next he had been pinned down like he was a particularly rare butterfly. He could feel the needles buried through his muscles and the only thing was missing was the glass display.

* * *

Liza isn't alone when he shows up on her doorstep — a gaggle of girls, lined up on the couch with paper in their hands — but he pays them no attention as he crowds Liza backward step by step into her own living room. Ground, once given, he wasn't going to let her reclaim.

_"What_ have you done?" he snarls through his teeth, quietly, for her ears only, as intimate as anything he's ever said to her.

She still doesn't understand him, doesn't know what it is she sees and fears in him and he will never figure out how she can be so blind. She was on Rook with him, wasn't she? She was there and smelled the air and tasted the drugs. She's seen the horrors, she was at Vaas' mercy, what mercy there was. How can she be here, now, and look at him with this perfect incomprehension?

It's all he can do to give her the moment of doubt before he puts the knife back to her throat, where it should have stayed six months ago.

The hint of false security she needs to tell the others to leave them alone. Jason sees the doubt in their eyes and already knows the one who will call the cops and whose statement will be the most damning. Not everyone will mistake him for harmless on first look, after all. He misses the time and place when _no one _would. The place where he is a fairy tale name. And all fairy tales are horror stories.

But one step after another. He needs to finish this. She has set him up for this, like Citra did before, like predestination. You can think you cheated fate, but fate's a bitch and it'll never forget where you live.

"What I had to," Liza says as the girls leave. And she believes it, too. She still thinks she is saving him from himself, from hell and all its demons. She still thinks she wants to love him, if only she'd get through to him.

Well, she is through now, has his attention, all of it. And the knife he stole and the gloves he put on before he knocked at her door. For whatever it'll be worth, the time it will buy him. He has to remember that this isn't his home turf, he doesn't make the rules in this place, he'll have to keep his head down and retreat before he can be cornered. Here, he cannot stand and fight it out.

He's been quick to place the blame on Liza, but it's not until she confesses it that his mind truly settles. He _has _come to kill her, but there still were residues of loyalty and emotion. She didn't _need_ to make herself his enemy. He sort of wishes she hadn't.

"You betrayed me," he says.

Her eyes are wide on him, large enough so he can almost see his reflection in them.

"You need help," Liza insists in the face of her doom as if she hasn't recognised what is about to happen. "And you won't let me help you. So when they lock you up, you'll have no choice."

Can her instincts be truly this bad? Is she this trusting? She just keeps on talking and what she's saying makes less sense as she goes on.

"Maybe, when you can think clearly again, you'll understand," she shakes her head sadly. "And forgive me, too."

Her regret runs true, he can tell and it stills his hand for a moment, where it is slipping around the hilt of the knife. It is only a moment, though, he is too eager for the blade and the hilt's weight is welcome and familiar.

"No," he says, very quietly. It sounds almost sad, something breaking at the back of his throat to spill the bitter taste of regret on his tongue. It is all she will have, however, because the moment she realises the real reason why he's looking at her the way he does, his hands are already on her.

She flails desperately at first, before she remembers her self-defence courses and tries to twist free, choking his name in invocation. She makes them both crash into her couch table and she is too slow to roll away from him before he buries her under his weight. Her legs kick out uselessly and he catches her arms and pins them among the shattered debris of the table.

"Jason," she wheezes. "Stop! What are you doing?"

He tilts his head and looks down on her. Pulls himself up to straddle her, leans back to finally pull the knife from its sheath at his back, hidden under his shirt until now.

When she sees the weapon, she begins to struggle again and it is as useless as it was before. He is too strong and too heavy and hasn't left her even with one advantage. There is something almost erotic in the way she writhes, held between his legs as she is. Sensual.

"Forgive you?" he asks, puts all the bitterness into it. "Why should I?"

The knife dances in his hand elegantly as he turns it, aligns the weapon with his forearm and the blade with her throat. It's different than before, the angle is new and this knife is unadorned and insignificant. It'll never be the same thing, he knows that. It'll not bring Citra back or change the months he's wasted trying to be something he is not.

It'll be good enough.

She heaves in a last ditch attempt to shake him off, but all she achieves is to nick herself on the blade, cause a tiny cut in the vulnerable skin of her throat. It can't possibly hurt that much, but from one moment to the next, the fight goes out of her and she lies limply beneath him. Even her face settles into a simulacra of composure.

"God, Jason," she whispers. "I'm so sorry. I don't… I… you don't have to do this. I know you think you have to… but that's just… just the madness. Jason? It's not to late. You can…"

"You sold me out," he points out, quietly at first, before the rage suddenly breaks through. "YOU BETRAYED ME! Everything I did for you and you can't even give me _one _fucking thing I need!"

A tiny drop of spittle flies from his teeth and lands on her cheek. She turns her head away. Silent tears overflow from her eyes finally.

He feels the tension in her body, the force of will it takes her to look back at him. She's wrong. It's too late to turn back. It was too late too long ago.

"Jason, please," she sobs. "Please, I lo-"

The knife sinks into her skin, makes it split open along its length. There is a moment, the briefest of instant, when the gap is there already, but before the pressure of the blood breaks through.

He presses through it. Liza twitches and shivers, the muscles of her arms strain against his hold. In dying, she musters more strength than some of the pirates he's killed, he'll give her that.

The moment breaks and her throat gapes wide, gushing blood to the rapid rhythm of her stuttering heart, dousing him. It's always surprised him just how much blood a body can hold.

He saws the blade through, then reaches up and presses against her forehead with the palm of his hand, putting her head back a little. The skin at her throat tears a little wider. He leans over her, face to face, close enough to kiss her lips as she keeps mouthing his name.

He looks into her eyes. He hasn't often stayed long enough with a victim to see their eyes as they die. In a way, he thinks, he has never seen death as it happens. He has always been on the run, always after another victim to truly watch.

This time, he stays until the last spasm stops.

* * *

The containers were stalked skyscraper high, creating neatly ordered, perfectly straight avenues to shape an oversized chessboard, mostly automatised for maximum efficiency.

Jason had barely encountered anyone as he made his way through the port. The weather was with him, windy and cool enough his drawn hoodie drew much less attention than his face would, though in all fairness, he was still just paranoid about it.

The cops were chasing random leads and it was only half a day ago that he walked away from Liza's apartment, not long enough for serious suspicions to arise. Once they did, he had no way of knowing just how quickly fingers would point to him or how bad the manhunt would be.

He hated the thought of being prey.

On the phone, earlier, Riley had said: _Are you crazy? Like, actually really crazy?_

Of course Riley didn't know about Liza, he only knew Jason was having some trouble with an insistent police detective and that he would have to skip dinner.

No one yet knew about Liza, but the look in her eyes haunted him. Her voice whispered at the back of his head, as adamant as she had ever been in real life. Mistake, she said, it was a mistake. Why not let it go? Why not just walk away? Why cut your ties so bloodily?

Why. _Why. _Like it wasn't even a question, but a challenge thrown at his feet and clinging to his boots, leaving a stinking trail behind wherever he went. If the cops got the bloodhounds, they'd have no trouble finding him.

It had been different in Citra's temple, his blood pulsed hotter in his veins and his thoughts had had a clarity they never quite seemed to achieve in LA. He couldn't go to eat with his mother and brother with Liza's corpse barely cold. He couldn't even picture meeting either of their gazes ever again.

"The fuck you doing here?"

A man with a clipboard stood by a stack of crates, all marked with a 'fragile' sign. Workers scurried back and forth, loading the cargo.

"I'm looking for a Captain Durmer," Jason said.

"Why?"

"I want to hire on."

The man eyed him, then laughed. "That's not how it works, boy."

"I got his name from a guy called Lyle Bentall, he said Durmer could help me out."

"Lyle's a cunt."

Jason just looked back at the man, studied him in turn. Not overtly tall, once strongly muscled but putting on bulk with advancing age. Clever eyes, though and an ironic twist at the corners of his mouth. Someone used to be taken seriously.

"You Durmer?" Jason asked.

"And what if?" the man shrugged. He waved with his clipboard. "Leg your way out of here, boy, and find yourself a cruise ship."

"Can you help me out?"

"Lyle's a cunt," Durmer repeated, as if it was a pretty good explanation for anything.

Lyle had been a regular at the club where Jason had worked. A bit of a sleazy guy, a small-time criminal trying to play the big game. No doubt he'd eventually turn up somewhere belly-up. Not least of all because he had a habit of talking when drunk.

"I need to get out of the country," Jason said.

Durmer laughed again. "What'd you do? Wet the bed at night?"

The nearest two workers heard the joke and laughed, too, but without interrupting their work. Jason tilted his head a little in their direction. He had mapped the area before coming here and he knew there were six workers handling the crates. Three were up on the ship on this side. Even assuming they were all armed — only Durmer himself carried a gun, it's weight obvious under his sweatshirt and only one other worker had a knife strapped to his leg under his trousers — Jason could probably take them all out before anyone realised something was wrong. It wouldn't _help _him, but it was something to put in his expression. The thought of _I could kill you at any time if I wanted to. _

"I can pay," Jason said, otherwise ignoring the joke and the insult it contained. "And work."

The money was mostly Ollie's. Or rather, Ollie's parents' who thought giving him _more _would somehow be the same as care. Or a hug. Or whatever it was Ollie actually needed instead of money and pot. Ollie had been shovelling some of it Jason's way ever since they'd come back, knowing Jason was having a hard time of it.

Durmer eyed him again. "It's not so easy. You aren't, say, a usb stick. I can't just keep you in my pocket when customs combs the ship. And I can't _hire _you. The company does that and they'd run a background check on you. I'm guessing that wouldn't be a good idea."

"Depends on how quickly they do it," Jason said. "Two days from now? Not so good."

"Right," Durmer nodded. "And it's not like they'd choke up the dough for an untried hand, anyway."

"Sound like you could need a hand, though."

"Not so big on the _untried _thing, son."

Son. Jason took it as a good sign. He glanced past Durmer and up the bulk of the freighter. His close experience with ships were unlikely to endear him to Durmer. He looked back at the captain. "Can't we work out something?"

A pair of workers came close to them, lifting the last crate and one of them said, "Yeah, come on, Cap'n, do it for Tate. He'll have a use for his skinny ass."

Durmer gave him a hard look and the worker shut up, carried off the crate.

Durmer said, "That's not the deal you want, trust me."

"It's not the deal Tate wants, either," Jason agreed. He looked over the ship again. "What if I'm just a stowaway? It's a big ship and I'm good at hiding. And if customs find me, you play dumb. If they don't find me, I'll work _and _pay."

Durmer frowned. Looked Jason up and down again, considering for the longest time. Jason could see the thoughts working their way through his thoughts. Durmer suspected good money and was loathe to let it go. He didn't like Lyle, but trusted him. He thought Tate was going to make a meal out of Jason and Durmer didn't want to have to handle the fallout. He was worried Jason would spent the entirety of the journey being sick over the side of the ship.

Durmer took a deep breath. "We'll try it," he said. "Where'd you wanna go anyway?"

"Bangkok would be good, but anywhere in the general area will be fine."

"We are making port in Singapore, I'm afraid that's the closest you'll get on this round."

"I can handle myself," Jason said.

Durmer didn't quite believe him, but let it go. He glanced at his watch. "We're leaving in three hours and… exactly eight minutes. You're here then, we'll take you along. Don't forget to bring the money."

Jason nodded. He pulled the hoodie deeper into his face and tucked his hands away in the pockets of his jeans as he walked away. Three hours was good, enough to grab his stuff — not like he needed a whole lot — and make his way back.

It was unlikely Liza would have been discovered already and with any luck, he'd be out in international waters before the shit hit the fan, even if he was somehow tracked to the freighter.

He had fixed it, in the end. He had made Citra's sacrifice, too little and too late perhaps, but he hoped the Raykat would accept it as the gesture it was. With Liza's death, Rook was the only place he could call home. He couldn't stay in LA, in the lives of the people he still cared about and he would never be forgiven.

* * *

_"Jason, what the fuck? All hell is lose here! Where the hell are you?"_

The satellite phone provided a bad connection and Riley's voice came distorted and distant, lag creating odd moments of silence.

"I'm gone," Jason said. He was leaning his hip into the edge of the console on the bridge, half-turned away for a modicum of privacy.

_"Gone? What the…? Did you hear about Liza? Where _are _you?" _

There was a long pause, Jason said nothing, he knew he wouldn't have to. He didn't really want to say it aloud, either.

_"Oh shit,"_ Riley concluded. _"Oh shit oh shit oh shit. You… fucking… you didn't! That's not…!"_

"Tell mom I'm sorry," Jason interrupted softly. "It's the best I can do."

_"Fuck you, Jason. I mean it: _Fuck _you." _

"It _is_ fucked."

_"Fucked?"_ Riley hissed._ "Understatement of the motherfucking century! Jason, what the hell happened to you?" _

For a long moment, silence reigned, broken only by the static crackling. Lost in thought Jason looked around the bridge. There had been a "scuffle" the day before and he felt like he had shown remarkable restraint in not breaking all their necks. As it was, Tate and his little group of cronies seemed a whole lot more demure today, none of them meeting his gaze.

"I hit the ground," he said.

* * *

_End of Chapter 1_

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

This is concepted as a multipart story, but I realised I could leave the first chapter as a stand-alone, too. It's the first time I write two long-ish stories at the same time. I have no idea what this'll do to my updating habits. I am also still officially not writing, because I'm studying for exams. You can tell how much of that I'm doing...

Liza comes across as needlessly meddling and bitchy. That's because Jason finds her irritating and I'm shackled to his POV (sort of like in the game). I can't help but think of her as Skylar White, her role is similarly thankless. Under no circumstance do I want her role in this story to be understood as character bashing.

Also, I have only the very vaguest of ideas about US police procedure. I can only google. If I made some egregious mistake, please tell me!

I'm still looking for a consistent 'voice' for this story. It doesn't satisfy as it is, but I'm not sure how to fix it. Maybe I'm not cut out to be writing Jason, maybe I'll find my balance eventually.

I'm actually surprised there aren't more fics with this premise. Unless they are hiding somewhere other than the big fanfic archives?

I hope you had some fun reading! I'll take **constructive criticism** rather well. Thanks!


	2. Fool's Paradise

**C****hapter 2: Fool's Paradise**

* * *

The sun broke through the bullet holes in the parasol above and painted tiny spots of searing heat across his legs. It was just this side of comfortable in the all-encompassing warmth of a Rook Island afternoon. The air was humid and heavy, suffocating him and covering his body with a thin layer of sweat. The beer was stale and warm, the glass of the bottle sticky in his hand.

Jason leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, took in the distant scent of the jungle and the hint of salt from the ocean. There was the sickly sweet smell of rotting trash somewhere less far away, wafts of sweat from the people who walked past him and a patch of spilled beer somewhere on the floor. Someone was roasting sausages somewhere and they weren't entirely fresh anymore.

Something strange had happened almost the moment his feet touched Rook Island ground. He felt settled, utterly relaxed and perfectly at peace. He could blame it on the sunshine and the gentle roll of waves along those endless, ivory-pale beaches. He could blame it on the easy-listening music tumbling from an ancient radio inside. He could blame it on many things. But for the most part, he just took it in his stride.

He had landed in Thursten and stayed there for a few days, gallivanting around town. He'd rented a room with a bed for sleeping and a dry-heaving toilet, but it would do for now. He was almost through his money. Most of it had gone to bribes in Singapore and to hiring a boat that would take him to Rook. What he had left, he bet on the poker table and was cutting even for now. The thing was, he didn't _need _to be moving yet. He could afford to just sit in the sun, outside the Crazy Cock and relax.

The irony of it wasn't completely lost on him. He had been pulled tense like a bowstring in LA, everything had been so close to the edge, so close to snapping and tearing him apart. It had driven him away and all the other tiny mistakes and missteps he had made to end up with Liza's blood on his hands and all over him. Yet, here, in his promised land, his bloodlust seemed suddenly assuaged.

Not that things hadn't changed in the months he had been gone.

For one, as it turned out, Rook Island wasn't quite the insiders' tip — you know, for spotters for a human trafficking ring — but it attracted a handful of tourists eager for a real adventure. Jason had joined such a group, taking the opportunity to blend in with people less suspicious than he would have been alone and keeping his opinion about their choice of destination to himself.

For another, the hostage crisis with Jason and his friends had actually prompted the government to remember Rook at all and a small garrison of police-officers had set up shop in Thursten, began to clean up the island and make it safe enough for normal tourism, cashing in on the islands infamy while it lasted. They had made some small headway in cleaning out Hoyt's privateers, driving them out of Thursten and into more remote areas of the island where they seemed locked in some kind of overblown pissing contest between at least four different groups.

In Thursten, the gun-shops were gone. You could still buy 'herbs' in the usual places, but guns had been driven out along with the privateers and their prostitutes.

"Try Amanaki,"the bartender had advised when Jason had asked about buying a gun.

The Rakyat were in charge of the northern island. And some new policy for the 'preservation of the cultural heritage of Rook Islands' had so far given them free reign to do as they pleased. Besides, a dozen police, even in shiny new uniforms, weren't really equipped to disarm the Rakyat and so far, they hadn't been dumb enough to try.

Amanaki could wait another day, too.

Jason's beer was empty and he collected himself from his chair and wandered back inside, it took his eyes a moment before his eyes adapted to the gloom. On his way to the bar counter, the attention of the handful of other patrons followed him, awkward in the attempt to look, but to not be _seen _looking. Jason had been recognised the moment he stepped off the boat. He had had his impact on Rook and left a fresh scar. Even if he had been unknown before, after Vaas, after Hoyt, after Citra, there was no on here who didn't know his face. Or his tatau. Or the fact that his left ring-finger was missing.

He slipped into a seat by the bar.

"Another?" the bartender asked and stashed the empty bottle away somewhere behind the counter.

"Yep," Jason said, leaned his elbows on the dry, splintering wood in front of him. After the heat of the outside, the air inside the bar was surprisingly cool. It was still as stuffy, though, making breathing difficult and his muscles even more lethargic. He thought he would sit inside for another hour until the worst of the heat was over, then head to the beach for a swim.

The bartender set the fresh bottle in front of him. If the Crazy Cock had a working fridge, Jason had never seen it, nor any evidence for it. Perhaps they kept their paperwork in there, because it sure as hell wasn't the beer. Nevertheless, the glass gave off a hint of coolness as Jason wrapped his fingers around it.

The hinges of the door gave an ugly screech, followed by the low thud of heavy boots on the dry floor. The next thing Jason noticed was the drop in sound as the conversation abruptly faded on the other tables.

The bartender edged to the side, obviously unhappy where he was, but too dutiful to just throw himself behind his counter for cover. For all that, the fireworks weren't going off just yet. Jason turned a little in his seat to get a glimpse of the taproom from the corner of his eye and see the bulk of a man standing by the door.

Jason shrugged inwardly and put the beer to his lips, tilted his head back and took a deep gulp while the beer wasn't quite as stale and warm as it could be.

"It _is _true!" someone barked from behind and walked for the bar, wading through the silence. "Fucking Snow White has come waltzing back into town. I didn't believe it when I heard it!"

Jason swivelled around in his seat, took the beer down and rested his elbows against the counter, regarding the man with casual disinterest. He didn't recognise his face, but his bearing alone marked him as a privateer. He had shed his uniform, no doubt to accommodate the new masters of Thursten and wore no gun, just a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. A big man, he still put some effort in making his footfall as heavy as he could, long strides for effect to reach the counter.

He left a seat empty between them as he choose his own. He gave Jason a grin, then caught the bartender's gaze. "Coke," he said.

Brave man, Jason thought vaguely. Just because it was brown and came out of a coke bottle didn't mean it _was _coke. Great against constipation, though.

"You seem familiar," Jason said. "Did I ever slaughter all your friends?"

The man coughed up some laughter, but the humour was draining away as he did. "Things have changed," he observed. He took the coke bottle, and turned in his seat to face Jason. He said, "The name's Colton, by the way. I used to work for Hoyt, as you guessed. But like I said, things have changed."

"And?"

Colton's originally rather cheerful expression kept falling away further. He stared into his coke. "Everyone's heard you were back, not everyone's thrilled about it."

"And?"

"We…" he paused briefly, picking over words. "Well, things are more complicated now."

Jason said nothing. Drank. Watched Colton's profile and kept his attention on the door. He didn't quite trust the man, there was no way to be sure this wasn't just an elaborate way to sneak up on him.

Colton said, "They've installed a new police chief in Thursten. Sharp guy, if you ask me, name of Lamon Jurangpati. Actually pays attention to what's going on around here. He's _listening_. I think once he catches wind of your return, he'll try to do something about it."

"And?"

"Can you stop saying that?" Colton snapped and put the coke down with a low, half-full _clunk. _

Jason gave him a toothy grin. "Are you ruining my afternoon for a reason? Or just for the shit of it?"

"I'm not ruining your afternoon," Colton said and just about managed to keep most of the snarl from his voice. He took a breath, stared at his bottle and seemed to admit some kind of defeat. "Thing is, my boys and I, we've been wondering what you're, uh, up to."

And the truth was, the question had pushed him right outside the nice little comfort zone of his lazy, sun-bleached equilibrium

"Keep wondering."

Colton made a dissatisfied grunt. "Just so you know, you _will _come up against Lamon and he might not look like much, but he's tough as nails. He's managed to drive us out of Thursten and he's putting the pressure on. If he gets a few more men, some better equipment, he'll mop up this island no problem."

"He's had his work cut out for him," Jason pointed out. "A bunch of criminals with no one to lead them. Anyone could've done that."

Colton gave up completely, Jason could see the exact moment it happened. The privateer picked up his coke bottle and stood up, looked back down at Jason's slouched form.

"You know, we don't have to be enemies this time. Me and the boys, we could use you. If you're looking for a well-paying job, find us. We are bunkered down in Hoyt's old compound."

Jason laughed, he couldn't help it. The hilarity just bubbled up at the thought. He wasn't going to be a _privateer_, what was this guy thinking? He wasn't like Hoyt, he wouldn't know how to achieve his level of douchebaggery.

And he certainly wasn't some crazy fuck like Vaas, not even on his worst day.

"You are ruining my afternoon," Jason said lowly. "Maybe it's time you stopped."

Colton managed not to throw his hands up like a child having a tantrum — Jason would have punched him if he had. Colton only shook his head, turned around and marched back out.

It was too late, though, Jason't peaceful state of mind was all shot to hell now. He could have done with just _being _for another few days, until his luck at the poker table tipped the wrong way for too long and he had to figure out a way to make a living. His plans had been more about hunting, not helping some new crime lord take control over the island. Otherwise endangered animals practically bred like vermin around here, more than enough to keep him well afloat for as long as he could lift a gun or draw a bow.

Jason leaned back on the counter until the bartender had no other choice but pay him attention.

Jason said, "Tell me about Lamon."

The bartender looked back at Jason for the longest time without much of an expression on his face. He looked like his brain needed a reboot. After a moment, his gaze twitched away from Jason and over the other patrons, then back. He said, "Not much to tell. He's police chief now. He and his men have driven the privateers away."

"Also the gun dealers and the hookers," Jason added. Probably meant the Crazy Cock was off pretty good, not a whole lot of fun left to do other than hang around and get drunk. "Are the poker tables going to be next?"

"I, uh, wouldn't know," the bartender said. "But it's strange. It's been pretty quiet since you got here. I bet it won't last."

It was hard to imagine law and order holding sway over Rook. Hard, and also pretty fucking terrible. He had just left a cop in the dirt back in LA, he didn't need another breathing down his neck. He didn't need someone _investigating _what he got up to, even if it was just the slaughter of a tiger or two. That didn't mean he would just come over to the dark side, however. The enemy of his enemy was _still his fucking enemy. _

He picked up his beer and wandered back outside, needing some more air. In the few minutes he had been inside, threatening clouds had gathered over the oceans, changed the quality of the light. He walked to the edge of the porch and looked out over Thursten, trying to detect a pattern there, something new in how the people went about their business. No one was wearing a gun openly, but enough carried them under their shirts and strapped under their pant legs, knives of all sizes were still everywhere, just slightly better hidden. And some of the women were obviously not just there to enjoy the sunshine. Something in the way they held their heads and hung their shoulders always gave them away.

So, things had changed, huh? Progress marches on and all that bullshit?

The thought of this island as a tourist trap was entertaining, though. It was almost as if the government didn't known Rook had never been anything else.

* * *

Jason feels the jungle, its whispering depth all around him. Seemingly impenetrable green parting before him, revealing its hidden paths to him as if it reshaped and moulded itself to his needs and whims. He feels the undergrowth break away under his boots as he picks up speed, dipping his head past low-hanging branches without thinking. The tip of the bow snags, though. It's longer than the bow he was used to. It throws his balance, only minimally, but it still tarnishes the experience of the hunt. LA has made him soft. It's whittled away on his edge and the jungle notices and resists him.

But he hasn't forgotten everything and the jungle fails to lead him in circles. He finds the ridge he's been looking for and races up the slope until the jagged peak brings him level with the treetops surrounding it.

He is here for a reason, but the view gives him pause, roots him to the spot where he crouches still hidden in the undergrowth clinging to the ridge. Rook Island spreads out before and below him, deep-choking emerald hemmed in on the horizon by an impossibly blue sea and a sky that gains in depth as the sun begins to go down.

He is almost too late. Tiny mistakes, sneaking in. He's forgotten how quickly it becomes dark and he has only a little time left, before the precarious balance between hunter and prey tips the wrong way and it'd be the leopard who stalks _him_ and not the other way around.

Jason holds himself perfectly still on his vantage point, tears his gaze away from the horizon to let his eyes adjust to the depth and shivering of the jungle at his feet, watches each singular twitch of a branch for a pattern or a rhythm, something to reveal his quarry to him.

There is a flock of birds in a tree not far from him. They've been chattering agitatedly when they spotted him, but they calm again, once he makes no move against them. To the left of him, a little further, a group of monkeys are playing in the branches. Jason knows he cannot see and hear and scent as they do and if he spent hundreds of years in this place, but he doesn't have to. All he has to do is pay attention to those who can, even the trees will speak in the way their leaves flutter differently, if it's just wind or a body moving past.

The horizon begins to dip from azure into sapphire and the blackness coils thickly down on the ground like mist, hiding every treacherous fallen tree and cleverly wrapped vine and liana.

In the end, as if the jungle wants to make it up to him, wants to show him he is not yet completely rejected, it's not the monkeys who spot the leopard first, nor the birds. He sees the distortion the cat's nearly perfect camouflage causes against the backdrop as it sneaks toward where the monkeys are still playing, oblivious to what has set its sights on them.

Jason edges forward carefully so the inadvertent whisper of the grass won't betray his presence. He freezes when the leopard does, as it lifts its head and twitches its ears in his direction. Clever kitten, Jason thinks as the leopard eyes the ridge, trailing its gaze up on the steep wall on that side.

It's like a duel, really, a staring contest between them, though the leopard shouldn't see him while he holds still and he is too high for it to catch his scent. The cat is a beautiful animal, solidly muscled under a glossy coat. A sin, almost, to puncture that perfect skin, even with just an arrow, to blemish it with sticky blood.

A sin to take such a hunter from the world, Jason thinks in a moment of unexpected kinship.

But a deal is a deal and he's promised to deliver five leopard skins and in truth, he is eager to test his skill, to see just how much of it he will have to regain in the coming weeks.

When the leopard turns its attention back to the monkeys, Jason slowly shifts to his feet and draws the bow from his back in one smooth motion. He feels a slight pull in his muscles, as he forces himself into a familiar stance. He feels the tension as it climbs through his feet and up into his arms, the strain in his wrists and the sharpness of where the bowstring buries itself into his fingers. It's not enough to ruin the shot, not even a proper weakness, but he'll have to remember he cannot keep the bow drawn for as long as he used to.

The leopard is advancing on the monkeys, edging forward by cautious increment. Only its tail bats back and forth, an echo of what Jason feels in his throat, the urge to just drive forward, throw all caution to the winds and _take. _The monkeys are so close, it would be a long leap, but it might just be enough. But the leopard knows it won't eat if it jumps too soon, just as Jason knows he needs to shoot true.

It's not an easy shot and from a difficult angle. The wind is different up here, stronger than it will be down there and the ridge has looked less high from below than it revealed itself to be. Jason is just about still close enough to dare it, but the leopard is moving away from him, circling its own prey and clinging close to the darkness crawling over the ground, its spots hiding the outline of its body amidst the uncertain light.

A monkey jumps down to a branch close above the ground. It's wrestled some fruit from the others and has withdrawn to eat in peace. The leopard goes still, just as Jason has. Only the very tip of its tail still moves and then the muscles in its hind-legs and strong back pull tense in anticipation.

Jason opens his fingers and lets the arrow fly, a hissing by his ear, cutting the very air. The leopard leaps, but its a heartbeat too late and the arrow eats through it's throat. Panicked, the leopard throws itself to the side, body convulsing so fast the motions blur as it rolls into the shrubbery, desperate to save itself.

The monkeys screech and flee into the treetops and all the birds take to the darkening sky.

Jason throws the bow back over his shoulder and runs back a little, to where the ridge tapers off into a more gentle slope. The leopard won't live, but he'd rather not have it get too far away from him, lest something begins to gnaw on it before he can get to it.

The trail is easy to follow. The leopard has broken a wide swath through the jungle before it succumbed and Jason follows the trail, one careful step after another. A wounded leopard is perhaps the single most terrifying thing in existence. Tigers are bad and Komodo dragons aren't fun, either, but leopardsare _fast. _They can shred the skin from your body in the time a tiger needed to close its jaw.

This one, however, is in no state to do much damage anymore. The arrow has cut through the front of the throat, effectively slitting its throat from the inside while the arrow left only a narrow opening in the skin. Most likely, it'll choke to death before it bleeds out.

Jason circles it, outside easy reach of a paw, just in case.

He thinks of Liza as he watches the leopard trying and failing to pull itself back to its feet.

The jungle has gone quiet around them. Wildlife either fled or in hiding, keeping silent. And the night has finally come, wrapped the jungle around them into a blackness he has never seen anywhere else. It's so deep, he can almost feel it press down on his skin, weight and texture. He can never decide if it's a lover's embrace, or if the jungle would strangle and devour him if he lets his guard down for just a little too long.

* * *

The radio droned on as Jason drove the ramshackle Darrah over a narrow, bumpy patch of road down to the beach. Not that he'd ever seen another type of Darrah. He secretly suspected the things were manufactured pre-aged so as not to disappoint the customers' expectation and keep up it's competition with the Styrus. First thing Jason had learned about this particular car was that the brakes weren't reliable and the easiest way to stop was to find some gentle slope or one of those rare guard rails, but gently rolling out into deep sand also worked. Though, that tended to get sand everywhere inside the engine, making the Darrah give geriatric coughs and sputters.

A handful of shacks grouped itself around a weathered jetty. Jeeps were parked a little to the side and a group of men sat by a campfire. They rose to their feet and reached for their guns when Jason brought his car to a standstill a somewhat safe distance away. He got out of the car and raised both hands and stood still for a moment in the light of the headlights, so they would recognise him.

The men slowly lowered their guns, most sat back down, but one of them gestured to another and they both came over.

It was still an uneasy alliance between them. The leader of this particular group was called Emilio, middling high in rank under Hoyt, he had 'inherited' some of the more seaworthy cockleshells and used them to start his own neat little business with some of his former colleagues, transporting goods to the mainland and bring back whatever he thought he could sell best. Usually, it was weapons or at least ammunition.

Uniforms had gone somewhat out of fashion, though, and the men around the fire looked like any islander, except for a pair of good boots here or there or a piece of red clothing.

"Trunk," Jason said and walked around the car. He kicked the bumper and the trunk snapped open to reveal the leopard skins he had collected.

"Gah," Emilio muttered. "It's a bit disgusting, isn't it?"

Jason hauled out the pile of skins and shoved them into Emilio's opening arms, who promptly transferred them on to his henchman.

Jason shrugged. "I don't have the equipment to treat them properly, if you don't want them to rot, you better get them cleaned up quickly."

"Yeah, we've got it," Emilio nodded at his man. "But I'll never get used to it."

"Big cats smell," Jason said.

"So does flesh when it's out of its natural container," Emilio said. "You want a beer while I get your money?"

"Sure, why not?"

They wandered back to the campfire and Emilio's men opened a spot for Jason without too much apparent misgiving. Someone gave him a still closed bottle, so it was unlikely they'd spit or pissed into it. Not that Jason could have blamed them. Most of them — or all — had lost a friend or two to Jason and even those who never saw him had probably been living in terror for a good few weeks. It took a lot to invite someone like that into your midst.

Emilio had vanished inside one of the shacks and conversation had died down when Jason joined them.

"So, uh, are you going to watch the race tomorrow?" one of the men asked.

"I dunno," Jason said. "What race?"

"Couple of kids doing jet ski races. It's a bit of a party, really. Even the Rakyat don't shoot us on sight. Good money in it, too, you know, betting? It's down at Break Point Docks, if you want to come."

Another man cut in, "Just don't tell the cops, they've been trying to shut them down. The Rakyat still do what they like, but we aren't exactly welcome on their island."

He eyed Jason carefully, "Unlike you, I guess."

Jason smiled a little, "Why would I tell the cops anything?"

The men around the fire gave Jason more or less meaningful glances, because to them, Jason was a wildcard: no one was certain of his allegiance. He least of all, technically. Before the new silence had a chance to become awkward, Emilio finally returned with a bundle of money in his hand.

On Rook, you could pay with practically every currency in existence. Shop owners eyeballed the exchange rates and then generously weighed it in their own favour. Jason much preferred dollars, at least they _meant _something to him and he had made as much clear to Emilio.

"There you go," Emilio announced.

Jason nodded to the others, put the beer aside, got up to face Emilio and let him count the money out on his flat hand.

* * *

The race, it turned out, was a huge event and a party with most of the population in attendance, sprawling the length of the beach on both sides of Break Point Docks, filling the air with music and laughter. The race itself was the finale of contests that had lasted several weeks and had left just two men standing at the end. A Rakyat warrior, barely sixteen by Jason's estimate, but with quite a few tatau already drawn into his smoothly muscled arms. His rival was a little older — though still several years Jason's junior — not tattooed but definitely an islander.

Jason had thrown his money in the pot, betting on the Rakyat and nearly ended up regretting his decision. They were both incredible on the jet ski, going through the kind of obstacle course that made Jason itch to join in, just for the fun of it. In the end, the Rakyat won by barely an inch and barely a second — or however else the men on the finish line decreed who the winner was. The loser took it graciously, however, so Jason assumed there was no reason to doubt the result. Besides, he got to collect his winnings and the day was all set on ending on a high note.

The main event might be over, but the party was just starting.

"I've never seen those leaves before," Jason said as he watched the girl chop them up before putting them in his drink.

She gave him a grin. "They are just for taste," she assured him. "Nothing to worry about."

She pointed at another bowl, containing other, but equally unfamiliar leaves. "Now, _these _are for fun."

She picked up a handful of them and cut them into a few bigger pieces. She gave him a questioning look.

"Hit me," Jason agreed and took the cocktail when she held it out to him, all the leaves inside. The shredded leaves swirled lazily in the alcohol, drawing deep red lines after them, creating an interesting pattern. He pulled on the straw experimentally. He couldn't tell what the hell was in there, other than rum and, well, _stuff. _At first, it was sweet, almost too sweet and than a sharp prickling feeling lingered on his tongue and travelled down his throat.

"_This," _he declared then, "is the life."

The girl's grin got a little wider. "I'm Hiwa, by the way, in case you need to find me later."

"Will," Jason grinned back.

On the way back to the beach chair he had monopolised earlier, he got caught in a group of dancer and let himself be pulled along for a bit, until he was expelled from their circle on the other side. He did a little twirl on his own and got a few scattered cheers for his trouble.

Still laughing, he settled in his chair and enjoyed the shade a distant palm threw across him.

Out on the water, the obstacle course was becoming a free-for-all installation, under the cheerful tutelage of today's second winner. The islands' teenagers, too young to participate, were eagerly swarming him for a taste of his thrill. Jason would take a jet ski for a spin later, he decided. Show them how it was done.

Emilio's man had been right: A kind of temporary truce seemed to hold sway over the beach. Jason saw Rakyat and former pirates or privateers look stoically past each other, rather than slash each other's throats open. A few of them even got to chatting over drinks or other clusters of them on the beach, gesticulating expansively, presumably about the professional specifics of the jet ski race. Jason saw others playing cards or dice, offering smokes or at least a lighter to the other.

Emilio and his men were there and Jason recognised enough others to know where they came from. Or at least, who they had been when he was last on the island.

Jason spotted Colton with a tall woman hanging off his arm, someone who would have been miles above his league, so Jason guessed the girl had come from Hoyt's merchandise stock. Colton nodded to Jason as they walked by, but had the sense not to assume any closer friendship. The woman looked nowhere in particular, a perpetually fake smile pinned to her face, probably good enough for the privateers to cover how unhappy she was. Something about the way she carried herself caught and held Jason's attention briefly, a languid pride, something primal and almost savage. It was almost…

"Hell yeah! Look at that!"

A shadow fell across Jason and somebody stepped into his field of vision. He put his head back and glared at the two men. One of them dropped into an empty chair nearby, then shuffled to the side to give his companion some space.

"Love your tattoo, man!" one of them said.

With his mind still elsewhere, chasing a memory he couldn't yet name, he took a moment to size them both up. Guys his age and, moreover, probably also American, judging by their accent and clean, newish clothes. The one who had spoken was tanned and blond, surfer type.

"You aren't from here," Jason said, somewhat stupidly.

Surfer Dude laughed. "Man, how'd you tell? Got here this morning. There's this dude in Bangkok offers a trip to this kickass island."

"Read about it, you know?" his friend added. "While back? Like it's this paradise and it's got this _dark hidden secret _thing going on. Awesome, man, awesome."

"Yeah, we couldn't pass it up."

Jason blinked slowly. "What do you want?"

Surfer Dude and Best Friend exchanged a quick look. Both of them seemed a little crossfaded, come to think of it. Not that he was one to judge, his plans for the rest of the night weren't far different. Maybe find Hiwa again and figure out if she knew a few more interesting plants. Or interesting things not restricted to plants.

"You've got one of these tattoos," Surfer Dude said. "Like the natives. It's _epic_. Where'd you get it?"

"No mad Asian cruise is complete without a tattoo," said Best Friend.

"You have to earn it," Jason said slowly, like speaking to an idiot.

"Yeah right," Surfer Dude said disbelieving. "You're from, what, Santa Monica? You've already gone native or what?"

But Jason was only paying them half an ear's worth of attention because something had indadvertedly changed in the rhythm of the people around them. The dancers and their accompanying music were still there, the slow drift of people just enjoying themselves and the shrieks of those who were trying out the jet skis. And through that, like a shark swimming in to shore just underneath the surface, some of the men walked with a purpose into positions around where Jason sat, just a loose ring, but he saw them, their serious faces and the tatau marking them for what they were.

"I live here," Jason said and got to his feet, walked past the two of them and the hurt confusion as it spread over their faces. No doubt they had taken him for one of their own, never realising just how far off that assessement was.

"Hey!" Surfer Dude called after him, but was obviously too relaxed to follow him and make a fuss over it. "Rude, man."

Jason picked one of the Rakyat, the one farthest from the water and closed to the trees lining the road. The undergrowth there might be cover, if only for a second, but in truth Jason didn't really think there was going to be a fight.

The Rakyat drew himself to his full height and didn't give an inch as Jason stepped right into his personal space.

"Alright," Jason said lightly. "Take me to your leader."

The Rakyat frowned, obviously not quite getting the quip. He said, "Dennis wants to see you."

"Yeah," Jason nodded and let a growl come into his voice. "Take me to him."

The Rakyat led him away from the heart of the party, through the crowds of oblivious partygoers, who paid them both barely more than a quick glance. The other Rakyat drew together behind them, like waves in the wake of a passing ship, weaving through the crowds as they did.

Dennis was set up in one of the storage shacks, though it was mostly emptied out. Jason didn't exactly _like _walking through that door and into the darkness beyond, where he was momentarily blinded and everything could spring at him from there. He didn't dare hesitate, though, not with so may warriors watching.

What he did instead, was step just far enough inside to let his escort trail in behind him and then stop. He was still carrying his cocktail, he had forgotten to set it down and it was somewhat vexing now. Still, if it was something in his hand that could be a weapon, or a distraction at the worst. He lifted the glass and tipped it a little into the darkest corner of the shack, where he could just about make out Dennis' shape.

Jason had bought in the moment he stepped off the boat. The moment he took the knife to Liza.

The moment he jumped out of a fucking plan, an age and a half ago.

"Jason," Dennis greeted him and his voice gave nothing away. He shifted a little to the side and gave an empty crate a hard kick, making it skid across the dusty floor to almost the centre of the room. "Have a seat."

Dennis had dealt the cards, but it was too dark for Jason to see them. Time to gamble his life and hope it went somewhat better than last time. He didn't know how many body parts he'd stand to lose before he lost the guts for it.

Jason shrugged, walked to the crate and set his glass down on top of it. Behind him, two more Rakyat warriors stepped into the shack. The others would remain outside, there was not enough space for more and they would just get in each other's way.

Jason spared them a long glance, reminding them he knew they were there.

"I did not _think_ you would be coming back," Dennis said, noncommittally, holding on tightly to his cards and making a conservative opening bet.

"You told me this place calls to people," Jason said. He tugged his hands in the pockets of his jeans, oddly enough perfectly at ease where he was. He stalked around the crate in measured step for measured step, keeping his eyes on Dennis and the Rakyat as he circled. "I'm pretty much ruined for anywhere else."

"And still you went away," Dennis said and suddenly his voice picked up strength, laced with seething anger when he added, "After what you did."

"What _I _did?" Jason paused in his pacing to answer, then picked it up again.

"You killed _Citra!" _

Ah, there it was, rather what Jason had expected and feared would happen.

"I didn't kill her," he tried. It was a weak argument and he knew it, not good enough to bluff his way out of it. Citra was dead because of him, there was no way around it.

"You betrayed her," Dennis snapped. "And made her death possible."

_Raise_.

"It was _your _blade that killed her," Jason said quietly. "Simple as that. If you don't want to kill, don't carry a weapon."

_Raise yours_.

Jason completed a circle and stood in front of the crate again, where he had started, just a piece of feeble wood and a glass between them. He shook back into motion, but this time, three long strides brought him into Dennis' shadow. The Rakyat tensed, Jason could feel it.

Jason pulled his hands from his pockets and held them in the air, empty as they were, but also showing the tatau and the stump of his finger. No one could claim he had not earned a place among the Rakyat, he had paid dearly.

Under normal circumstances, he would have enjoyed this, this razor-edge tension, the danger vibrating in the air, charged before the storm broke free. And he did, too, even so. But he didn't want to _fight _these men, he didn't want to kill them, or kill Dennis. He didn't want to burn that bridge, too. There was no other place for him to go to.

"Without you, Citra would be alive," Dennis insisted. His shoulder leaned into the wall, casually relaxed and far from impressed from Jason's performance.

"Vaas would be alive, too," Jason said, _raising_. "Just like Hoyt."

"So you would buy your life with theirs?" Dennis asked with a hint of disdain in his voice. _Checking, _and he still couldn't tell where he stood.

"Do you want me dead?" Jason asked. _All _fucking _in_. If Dennis broke into violence, so be it. He could take them all, if he had to, if this was what Dennis truely wanted of him.

Dennis barked a laugh, angry and abrasive. "Why wouldn't I?"

_Show your cards. _Better be more than a fucking high card barely worth the term.

"Because the last thing Citra did was save me," Jason said. He wasn't quite sure where his voice had gone to, it came out barely as a whisper. "I don't know, honestly, maybe I've failed. Failed her. But she still chose _me._"

Dennis stood so perfectly still, he might as well have turned to stone on the spot.

And Jason couldn't stop pushing, not until he found the breaking point, "That's the thing, Dennis. That's what you need to figure out. If she wanted me alive, how do you _dare _want me dead?"

Jason stepped away, out of Dennis' shadow. He had said his piece and Dennis hadn't broken yet, hadn't slashed his throat with that dagger he kept clutching by his thigh as if Jason couldn't see him do it.

Jason picked his glass up again, took a sip as if he had no concern in the world, the last set piece of this playacting, with his back to Dennis in a the final challenge. The hairs on his necks stood on end, but it was too dark for any of them to see.

And nothing happened, for what felt like minutes, until Jason thought his muscles were going to rip apart on their own under the sheer pressure of it. He still couldn't tell who won the round.

He felt his patience trickle away, he wasn't going to cower and wait or Dennis' verdict like this. He didn't have much of advantage anyway, time to _waste_ it.

He sauntered for the door, where two Rakyat stepped in to block his way.

"Jason," Dennis called and pinned him to the spot. He didn't turn, but put his head to the side, listening. "You are not welcome with the Rakyat, but you can stay on the island."

Jason waited and the warriors shifted out of his way. Sunset light fell into the shack as they parted, spilling over the ground like blood, outlining Jason's shadow until it touched the darkness where Dennis was standing.

"Thank you," he said as he walked out.

* * *

The party didn't stop just because the sun went down, or because Jason nearly lost his skin in a nearby shack. In fact, quite the opposite was true, though the causality was anyone's guess. Firelight dipped the beach into points of brightness, framed by darkness deep enough to hide anyone who had passed out or puked himself after one too many drinks. Nothing a dive into the water wouldn't solve, at any rate.

Jason _had _taken a jet ski through the obstacle course when it was just about still bright enough so he didn't fly completely blind. _Screaming_ for all he was worth into the spray as it shot up in front of him when the jet ski crashed with its nose under a wave. A mouthful of saltwater shut him right up, at least until he spat it back out and another cresting wave washed his face clean. The jet ski's motor roared in his ears, too load for him to hear if he had garnered a rapt audience or not.

He sort of accidentally ended up beaching the jet ski well past the finish line. Brakes were for pussies, anyway.

It was like a fucking _baptism. _His kind, at least, holy shark-invested waters. Almost as good as blood. He got a lot of friendly slaps on the back as he climbed off the jet ski and Hiwa pushed another cocktail in his hand, this one looked suspiciously purple-ish, but tasted just as great as her earlier concoction.

Dropping into the sand by a campfire, he stared up at the sky as his new admirers trickled away again. "Fuck," he sighed to himself.

"What is it like?" someone asked, posh British accent perfectly out of place.

He snapped his eyes wide open, saw the first brilliant stars on the encroaching night above. He pushed himself back up on his elbows, sand clinging to his wet back. He frowned past the fire at Colton's girl.

She had a piece of fruit speared on a twig, listlessly frying it as she watched him. Whatever he had seen in her, before the dumbfuck tourists had got in his way, it was gone now. Up close, she was younger than he had thought and there was no elegant dignity on display. Still pretty enough to make a decent trophy for Colton, however.

"What's _what _like?" he asked.

Although she had started the conversation, she looked away from him and into the darkness, presumably searching for where Colton had gone to, or perhaps making sure he wasn't _coming back _just yet.

"Respect," she said duly. "How do you get it?"

Jason took a deep breath. He'd have to be an idiot not to see what she was getting at, or that her life wasn't sunshine and rainbows. At his guess, she had upgraded from being everyone's toy to just being the bosses toy and she didn't know if she liked the tradeoff. Tough, that, but not his fucking problem.

"Kill enough of them," Jason said simply. Had done the trick for him sure enough, even if he wasn't sure it was _respect, _but he would take sheer terror, too. It amounted to much the same thing, as far he was concerned.

A frown crossed her face when she spotted Colton, chatting with the guitar player across the open, fire-lit space between them. He was still well out of earshot.

"Everybody is afraid of you," the girl said. "Since you've arrived, everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They're just so afraid." She looked Jason over. "I thought you'd be bigger."

"Fireballs from my eyes, and bolts of lightning from my arse," he chuckled. "I get that a lot."

Colton had managed to get his point across and finally came back over, the first cords of 'Hotel California' following him to the fire like a bad smell.

"Ah, making friends," Colton said as he dropped down between the girl and Jason. It wasn't clear who he meant by the remark, but he obviously needed to mark his territory, putting a possessive arm around the girl's shoulders.

"Just talking," Jason shrugged.

"Have you, uh, thought about my offer?" Colton asked after a moment.

"No," Jason said, before he really had time to think about it. But was working for Colton much different from working for Emilio? Cast-of pirates and privateers, the lot of them, all criminals of one kind or another. Come to think of it, he didn't have a whole lot of a moral high ground to stand on. His body count probably exceeded theirs.

And now, when Dennis had made it clear where he stood with the Rakyat, shit else was there to do?

"I'm _not_ joining up, okay?" Jason clarified finally. "But maybe, if there's some job you need me to do, we can work something out."

It took Colton's rather drunk mind a moment to process this new information. When he did, his face lit up like a Christmas tree.

The guitar player had finally worked out where in the song he was and started singing: _Like a dog on the highway…_

"That's what I like to hear!" Colton declared, slapped Jason's knee and gave his girl a squeeze. "I'll have just the thing for good ol'Snow White. You'll love it, I swear!"

He grew pensive. "I'll get back to you tomorrow," he drew his brows together. "Or the day after that. No need to spoil the hangover, don't you think?"

"Whatever you say," Jason said and let himself fall back.

… _pink shampoo on ice. _

Wait. Are you sure about that?

He lifted his head and glowered at the guitar player, who remained blissfully oblivious.

"I fucking hate that fucking song," he growled, but let his head fall back into the welcoming sand.

* * *

_End of Chapter 2_

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**References **include _Braveheart_, misheard lyrics of _Hotel California_, _Star Wars_, and whatever it is that _take me to your leader_ is actually from.

**So, **Jason, the poor sod, has actually no idea just how badly it would have gone for him if he had chosen to stay with Citra in the first place.

**Apologies **if some of this, especially the dialogue, sometimes sounds like a Brit doing a bad imitation of a Californian.

This feels like an extremely slow chapter. At least, it was writing it. _Nothing_ happened. Jason didn't do _shit. _But then I realised that's because, for the first time, he's really on his own. Throughout the events of the game, he always has someone pulling his leash, whether he knows it or not. This time, he'll have to figure out where he wants to go and what he wants to do on his own.

Jason, the poor sod _again_, was all set to get a blowjob from Hiwa, but the scene was gratuitous and didn't really add anything to the plot.


	3. Dead in the Water

**Author's Note: **Really, like I'd be writing Far Cry 3 fanfic without violence.

* * *

**Chapter 3: Dead in the Water**

Jason has time to recognise the AK-47 before its butt smashes into his face and stops him dead. His vision washes out and blood from his torn eyebrow splatters everywhere and his knees buckle. The Vector falls from his suddenly clumsy fingers as he has to catch himself. Ancient, weathered stone bites hard into his palms as he stops his fall.

He's too slow. He _knows _he's too slow. They've got him cornered.

He goes for his knife anyway.

He won't die on his knees like this. Not like this, _please_ not like this.

He fights, dazed and half-blind, guided only by the resistance on his knife, when the blade snags on something, when he feels the hot, wet, thick blood go down over him.

The privateers rush him, take him back down to his knees where he _just can't be_, lunge for his hands. A shadow above him, another raised gun. He brings his knife around and moving feels like pushing through water and the privateer spears himself as he comes in too close, but another blow still hits the back of his head and he's crashing, falling, flailing.

Down and out.

* * *

Jason swam back into consciousness, one point of pain after another. Throbbing in his head; sharp sting from his eyebrow; a sick ache all the way from his stomach to his closed throat. His wrists burned and his palms and his knees felt oddly numb. The painkillers had worn off, of course, he felt the tiny sting of where he had broken the needle in his arm in his haste.

Metal rested heavy on his wrists. He pulled, before he knew what he was doing and didn't get far.

His neck had gone stiff in the time his head had been left hanging, badly supported, off the back of the chair he was sitting on. The vertebrae snaped and complained as he lifted his head and a new shiver crawls down through his spine. He tucked at his hands again and it finally trickled through his sluggish brain: _chains, _the fuckers used _chain _to tie him to a metal chair. Finally figured out they couldn't tie a knot worth shit, but he had never complained about that one, had he?

His left eye was swollen and caked with blood, he couldn't open it completely, but it was good enough to take stock of his surroundings. He was in a large room inside an old temple, set all by himself on one end, up on a dais or something, but everything was too crumbled to be sure what it all had been originally. The roof was mostly gone, overgrown by thick green, red sunset light slowly trickling through. He must have been out for more than an hour.

Just how bad was his head? How much of it had they knocked _away?_

On the other end of the room, the privateers were camped around a long table. Crates and boxes were staked against a wall, scattered guns and other weapons were everywhere, except within his reach unless he got there chair and all.

"Took you long enough," the man Jason had meant to kill said and walked into view from the side. He was middle-aged, bulging with muscles. Jason didn't have the faintest where he was from. Could be Rakyat, though no tattoo, could be any kind of Asian, could be homegrown American, too. Americans could look like everywhere, anyway.

"We were worried we got Sleeping Beauty, you know," he added. He and his men got a good laugh out of that.

Jason put his head in his neck to look up at the man, left his shoulders hanging down loosely to ease the pull of the chains. He felt light-headed and ridiculous, laughter — or possibly puke — trying to spill from his throat. He had made every mistake possible and here he was, tied to a chair, splitting headache and bleeding all over, the joke was on him all the way.

"You can't cash it in," Jason pointed out, voice gone all weird and croaked. "No one left whocan give you an island for my head."

The man walked in close, too fast and Jason's neck still ached with the effort to keep his gaze trained on him. He put his paws over Jason's shoulders, leaned in with his weight. Breath, rank enough to nearly knock Jason out again, wafted over him.

"We'll do _you_ for free," the pirate said. "It's a pity there isn't enough of you so everyone can get a turn."

One of the pirates down the hall held up a helpful hand, showing something and grinning so widely Jason saw it even at the distance.

"We pulled straws!"

Here was the story: Colton was trying to rebuilt Hoyt's empire, or at least the somewhat sorry-looking, Rook Island part of it. He had come by it rather by accident, he had simply been the highest-ranking _anything _left standing in Hoyt's compound after Jason was through with it. And Hoyt's men, disciplined for the most part, just fell in line with him. What was left of Vaas' men was another story. The Rakyat had kicked their collective asses from the northern island and the survivors had congealed on the southern, with just some lip-service paid to Hoyt and no actual loyalty, most of them tripping like fuck and getting off on imitating Vaas.

They had dug in deep all over the island, making life difficult for Colton and his more organised ilk. Making this Lamon guy more eager to rid the island of _all _of them, too, much to Colton's annoyance.

The problem was, at the core of it, once you read between the lines of what Colton was saying, everyone was just a little scared of the fuckers. Crazy will have that effect on normal people. Hard to predict, you just never know where you stand with them, can't make a deal, can't scare them properly.

Jason had kept his own counsel, listening to Colton outline the problem. What was the fuss, anyway? A bullet to the head will stop anyone, no matter how crazy or high. Colton was better equipped and had more men. Easy enough, right?

But Colton didn't have the balls, or maybe not the leadership, to risk throwing his men into a battle where too many of them would come away with bloody noses or worse. He had no true credibility, no big success he could built a reputation on. That's why he had been so eager to get Jason on _his _side, not just because he didn't want Jason on the _other _side, but because he thought Jason was the bigger bad all around.

Admittedly, that one just _might_ have gone to his head. Colton had some deep coffers, or at least he was willing to pretend as much to Jason, so that was good, but in truth, the only truth at the end of the day, was that Jason wanted the fight. Wanted the gun Colton gave him, wanted the weight of the bulletproof vest, wanted the thrill and the heat.

Except, of course, he had stumbled into the enemy camp like a jumped-up Californian boy, top of the world, finger on the trigger. There really had been just one way for it to end.

"Fucking chains?" Jason asked and rattled them a little for emphasis. Might as well make polite conversation while the pirates formed a line.

The pirate pulled a wide grin. Well, a _wider _grin. "Welded, too," he explained gleefully. "You aren't going anywhere, Snow. Not in one piece."

Bad Breath pushed himself up from Jason's chair and stood towering over him, obviously relishing the anticipation. Jason pretty much knew what was coming and braced himself for it. Or at least, as good as you can for such things. Bad Breath reached out and smashed his fist into Jason's jaw. The blow jolted the chair and rattled the chains. Jason's neck snapped again, this time to the side and his lip split under the impact. Blood and saliva ran down his chin, a new point of pain, igniting the others all over again.

Bad Breath and his pirates had settled in an old ruin. Most of it had been buried in a landslide some time ago, leaving only the central building, somewhat preserved and serving the pirates as chow hall. An old barbecue was set up, sending up a pillar of black smoke.

In his defence, Jason had been careful, not maybe the complete idiot he felt like right about now. He had staked out the camp, lured their two dogs away and quietly killed them in the brush before they could give him away or just maul him. He had counted the sentries — four of them, three too drunk to be much of a danger. He had reminded himself that there were _always _more men than he could see. He had spotted Bad Breath early on, arguing with two others in front of the gutted remains of a quad.

He had mapped his way through the camp in his mind. He struck late in the afternoon, when the heat was thickest and none of the pirates would be moving around more than they had to.

The forest crept close to the camp on one edge, he would take the sentry there first, cut his throat and dump him in the bushes before anyone was the wiser. Move on to the pirate dozing in the shadow of a Jeep parked nearby. From there, he had to sprint across an open stretch and slide into the shadow of an ancient wall…

What he had _missed _was the fucking sniper.

He had been holed up on the hill above the camp. Some parts of the ruins jutted up to the sky, man-sized pillars and blocks of stone. Easy to miss someone up there, if he didn't move and the glare from the bright sky made it hard to distinguish man from ruin.

Jason should have checked, though. Should have taken the time it took to circle the camp and make sure there was no one up there. Wasn't his first dance, he knew how this shit worked. _Should_ have, at any rate.

The other pirates jeered at the blow, some of them beginning to drift in their direction. So no orderly line, waiting for their turn, more of an old fashioned beat down.

Jason flexed his shoulders and neck, working the tension out as well he could. He let his gaze travel over the advancing pirates, appraising them cooly. The chains were a nice touch, sure, probably made them feel real clever for having thought of it.

Whatever Bad Breath thought he saw in Jason's face, he clearly didn't like it. He threw another punch, made a point, too, when he hit Jason's already damaged eyebrow. This time, Jason accommodated the blow and turned his head with it, making the impact slightly less painful than it was meant to be. The chains rattled over the rough floor. More blood ran down his face and Jason tongued his split lip.

Bad Breath looked disappointed at Jason's lack of reaction. He came back at him, put his hands over his shoulders again.

"What?" he snapped.

Jason let his head loll back, a sick little chortle bubbled up.

"You think you are the one with the big dick?" Bad Breath barked. The frustration was coming off him in waves, much like his stench.

The thing about the chains, the _real _thing about the chains wasn't that Jason hadn't a hope in hell to break them. _Welded, _they said, which explained the burning in his wrists, no reason for them to be careful. On the downside, the chain was made of rather large links, never meant for this kind of purpose, even if the pirates had pulled it as tight as they could.

But there was still some play. Just enough, and all he needed.

Jason bared his bloodied teeth and it gave Bad Breath a moment's pause, a flicker of recognition and tiny, instinctive flare of dread.

"I'll _eat _you!" Jason promised and sprang.

* * *

He springs, because he doesn't think he'll come out the good side of a headbutt and the last thing he wants is to knock himself out before he has at least a chance to go down fighting. It's a shame, of course, because Bad Breath is obviously just asking for this sort of stunt. Jason uses his shoulder instead as he gains his feet.

Jason swings his arm around Bad Breath's neck, crushes his head down on the edge of his shoulder. Hurts bad enough, too. Bad Breath never sees him coming. Jason shifts his grip, wraps his arms around his bulk like a fucking embrace. Makes him look like an idiot, but its the easiest way to get at Bad Breath's pistol and combat knife in the moment it takes the pirates to figure out what's going on.

Bad Breath's .44 slips into his hand like it's wanted to do that all along and Jason barely wastes time to aim, just points at the thickest of the pirates and shoots. He can't help counting them off in his mind, however, can't stop himself from keeping track of his kills. One to the head, one to the shoulder, one to the chest, their screams singing a round as they go down. The .44 has come to him already two shots down, makes one left.

Jason twists the knife in his hand and rams it into the soft flesh under Bad Breath's arm just as the man remembers what he is and tries to change the unwilling embrace into a grappling hold. The stab aborts the move and Jason kicks Bad Breath into his advancing men, follows in close behind him as the whale breaks the wave.

Bad Breath stumbles into a pirate and they both fall, leaving Jason in the middle of the pirates, but this time he knows what he's doing, this time he _remembers _how it was supposed to go, not like the first time when he's made every fucking mistake in existence.

Jason jumps to the side, rams his elbow into a pirate's raised gun, makes it clatter away. He turns, a map in his head still of where the enemies are even as they shift around him like sand. He steps forward, raises the gun and presses it to a pirate's temple as the man tries to follow the move. Jason pulls the trigger and lets the recoil help take his arm around and smash the revolver in another's face.

And he is past them, he sprints across the open space and picks a shotgun from the floor as he goes, jumps on the table and swirls around. Some of the more dumb pirates have coming running after him and he lets them come until two deep barks of the 1887 stops them dead.

The brighter ones have scattered to the sides of the room, finding cover behind crates and inside open doorways and fallen, ancient stones. Most of them are armed only with handguns and knife, they had been celebrating after all, too drunk or out of their minds, wanting to do him in with their bare hands. He can respect that, but he doesn't need to play along.

He runs the length of the table and the bullets chase him, hissing by his head, one even nicks the tip of his ear. The pirates shout orders to each other as he vanishes through the door on the end of the hall and stops there abruptly, presses his back into the cool wall, revels briefly in the relief of it. Only now feels the hard beat of his heart in his throat, the thin layer of sweat on his hands where it threatens to foul his hold on the shotgun.

He waits there, gauging time and then turns himself back into the doorway and yes, there they are, the pirates who fell for the trick and come running for him. He takes aim and fires, watches as if he has the leisure to, as a pirate's chest is riddled with holes and he knows his back will be torn ragged and open at this distance. Another pirate shares his fate, but the shells tear his stomach, spritzing blood. A third manages to throw himself to the side just in time.

Jason dibs back into the shadow of the doorway, changes to the other side and reemerges where the pirate is hiding. Rather than waste a shell on him, Jason just hits him with the barrel and then stabs him with the knife.

He hunts them, after that, picks them off as he follows the outline of the hall. It's slow at first, or at least he feels like it is. Slow and careful, baby steps as his instincts settle back into place, as he remembers how it's done against the slow-burning resentment of how out of breath he becomes, how the jungle heat presses against him, how the pain begins to suffocate him. There is a lure there, the seductive thought of _relax,_ _no need to strain, no need for effort, go easy on yourself. _

He finds a box of grenades and he stops, contemplating them.

"GOT HIM!" the yell behind him and he puts his hands on the box and turns around, drags it with him halfway and watches the pirates as they edge forward. Armed now and careful to pick their cover, trying to flank him.

He dips his hand into the box, pulls the safeties of several grenades, sets off a counter in his head, but he doesn't quite trust himself. He looks up when the red glare of a sniper blinds him for a second. A man on a broken tower, two stories above. An easy shot, everyone could do it. Jason empties the box of grenades on the floor, turns and runs.

The grenades go off, igniting each other and cause a conflagration at his back, searing him through the T-shirt as he goes, but there is some satisfying high-pitched screaming behind him.

Just to spite his complaining body, he comes back to the broken tower, scales it with fake ease and gritted teeth that makes the ache in his head beat an dull rhythm behind his eyes. When he reaches the top, he is seething and fucking tired. The sniper hears him and twists around, but is too slow to remember the rifle is useless when Jason is already _right there_. Jason grips the barrel out of his face, knees him in the groin and uses his own rifle to push him over the edge before he even has the time to double over properly.

The tower is a perfect sniper position. Jason sees no reason to force himself back down when he can just pick off what's left of the pirates from up here before they can make the tower. It's basically just cleanup at this point. Bad Breath didn't have that many men to start with and their advances first slow to a trickle, then die away before he runs out of bullets.

It is not his first dance, after all.

* * *

"Seems like it's your lucky day," Jason says with a sneer as he comes back to find Bad Breath propped up to a pillar in the hall. He's hugging himself, trying to still the bleeding of the wound Jason has left him with. He's gone pale, but Jason is fairly sure he's going to live.

"Fuck you," Bad Breath groans, but he's heart isn't in it.

Jason crouches down in front of him. "I got a message," he says. "For your buddies out there. You think you can keep it, or should I write it down?"

"I said _fuck you_, Brody."

Jason frowns and gets up, steps in close and without preamble, rams the barrel of a newly picked up shotgun into his mouth, knocking a few teeth out of the way. Bad Breath winces, blood wells up around the barrel.

"Let's try again," Jason says calmly. He pushes the shotgun again, just to make his point, hitting the back of Bad Breath's throat. His eyes shoot open wide. One of his hands has come up, wrapped around the barrel, but without any strength left to anymore than cling to it.

"I had a bone to pick with Vaas and Hoyt," Jason explains. "I'm done playing with them, you abbreviated pieces of shit nothing, I don't really care. You die if you get in my way, or you can roll over peacefully and do what I say."

Bad Breath mumbles something around the barrel, brows drawing together.

"It's not even only vowels, make some effort, why don't you?" Jason snaps. "That's the message. I _am _the one with the big dick. You're _mine _or you're _dead_."

He jabs the shotgun for good measure until Bad Breath is _this close _to passing out. It really _is_ his lucky day, the dead make sucky messengers.

He leaves him there heaving and goes to find a machete.

* * *

It wasn't exactly what Colton had wanted him to do, not all the way. Colton wanted the pirates wiped from the face of the island so he could feel like the powerful one, like he was the one in charge when everyone could really see he was barely keeping his head above water. Jason had the feeling his girl had something to do with that, too. She had a good head on her shoulders, not just easy on the eyes, too and Colton had enough sense to listen to her. Listen to Jason, quite possibly.

He drove back to the Compound with one of the pirates' Jeeps and left his Darrah abandoned in a ditch. Never liked that car, anyway, and the Jeep was better for getting around.

So what _was _he doing? He had been pissed with the pirates, he had wanted to make a point, remind them who he was and what he could do. But he really was just angry with himself for being a dumb beginner all over again. Sending a message seemed a good idea at the time, but where was it all going to end? What use would these pirates be if he just handed them over to Colton? Not like the little shit knew what to do with an army. He could barely keep things together as it was.

And the alternative… well, the alternative was… was…

What the fuck had he been thinking? It was always a little hard to keep things on the straight and narrow during the tail-end of a fight. You just rode too high on the rush, with more endorphins and adrenaline pumping through the bloodstream than actual blood. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, certainly. _You are my bitch now. _But it wasn't like he had the slightest of what to do with them, even if, for some reason, everybody wanted to _join _him, and not just slaughter or at least use him.

He could go into business, like Colton was doing, having grand dreams of whatever drug empire he thought he could remake out of the wreckage of the old. He could drug himself to his eyeballs and rant on about insanity and family and get butchered by some random chickenshit upstart he never saw coming.

Great fucking plan, that. Maybe think it over, Jason. Look before you leap for once in your sorry life.

"You really look like shit," Colton's girl said as he parked the Jeep and got out. He shouldered the stolen shotgun and walked around the car, picked up the bag he'd stored on the backseat.

"Thanks."

She sat outside the main building, looking tired and pretty. She spared the bag a brief look, but he couldn't tell if she guessed it's contents or whether it bothered her. Watching him, she said, "You'll need stitches for that eyebrow."

"Are you offering?"

"No," she said and something almost akin to a smile appeared on her face for a moment. "The men don't let me do that anymore. I appear to not be very good at it."

"Colton inside?"

She nodded, "In the office."

Hoyt's old office, of course, as if it would give him some additional authority. The privateers gave Jason a wide berth as he went through the building, no sneering remarks this time, no jokes at his expense. No one was dumb enough to push him, especially when he looked so freshly gorged on bloodlust.

The door was ajar and Jason gave it a kick as he went through, served the same purpose as a knock, but it made Colton jump a little in the leather of Hoyt's pompous chair.

Jason marched through the office and dropped the bag on the desk, where its content thudded heavily. The bag fell open, sticky with drying blood and leaking brain matter. Weighed a fucking ton, too. Jason was a little disappointed the desk hadn't broken under the impact.

Colton eyed the bag warily. "You realise 'headhunter' is really just a figure of speech?"

Jason grimaced. "They deserved it."

Technically, so did he, because there was just one guy to blame for just how bad this particular fight had gone. Colton didn't need to know that, but the way he looked Jason up and down brought him to the right conclusion anyway.

"Hard fight?" Colton asked.

"Take a look at the other guys," Jason said and pointed with his chin at the bag. "You won't have any trouble with them anymore."

Colton got to his feet. "I guess you want your money now?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Colton went to the wall, where the only decoration was the massive, metal surface of a safe. Jason tilted his head to the side, half watching, half listening as Colton opened the thing. Not like Jason would be able to break it. If he wanted to get to that money, he'd have to beat on Colton until he gave it up. They weren't quite there yet, though. It was hard not to congratulate Colton on that part of thinking. By making Jason his ally — however temporarily or expensive — he had at least eliminated the greatest, _perceived_ threat to his power.

Colton counted out the bundles of money. Jason wasn't quite sure the pay-per-head was that great, all things considered. No need complain, though. It had been an experience, at least and a more painful lesson than he had really wanted.

"You need a doc?" Colton asked. "Ali should be around."

Jason shrugged again. Colton's girl was right, of course, that brow should definitely be stitched and if he had to buy his drugs in Thursten, he'd just waste much of the money he'd just made.

"Annie's downstairs, she'll show you," Colton added.

"Annie?"

Colton frowned and said, "My girl."

"Ah."

"You, uh," Colton began. "You up for some more work? Because I have a few good ideas."

Jason hovered for a moment, undecided. Then he pulled out the chair in front of the desk and sat down. Colton seemed relieved as he returned to Hoyt's seat and settled himself there in what he probably thought was rather regal.

"Let's hear it," Jason said.

"I've been thinking about this and I think we can pretty much wipe everyone off the map. But that leaves Lamon in Thursten wanting to do the same to us and I think it'd be a waste to use you to hunt down a bunch of stoners in the jungle when there is this big beast just waiting to pick us off. Wouldn't surprise me if Lamon just waited until we tore each other up before he moves in."

Jason rocked in his chair, tipped it back until it balanced on two legs, eyeing Colton along his nose with barely feigned disinterest. He had a feeling he already knew where this one was going.

Colton continued, "Lamon is the guy, yeah? It's his show. I dunno what's going on on the mainland or anything, but someone's really picked this guy for a purpose. Men like that, they don't just come out of nowhere, so I think if Lamon had an accident, there isn't going to be someone who can replace him."

"You want me to kill the police chief."

"Was it that obvious?"

"Yes."

Colton rubbed his neck and hesitated. "You can name your price, of course, whatever it takes to get that splinter out of…"

"I'm not," Jason cut in.

"What? Why?"

"Because you're setting me up to take the fall for it. Whoever's behind Lamon will come looking for his killer. Fingers will point and you get rid of Lamon and Snow White in one shot."

Colton made a face of hurt righteousness. "Why would you even think that? We are all friends here."

"Seven months ago, I'd have killed you without a second thought," Jason pointed out. He couldn't claim he would have felt much remorse for killing him right now, either. "And you'd have been thinking only about whatever fortune Hoyt was offering for my head at the time."

"That's a long time ago!" Colton insisted. "_Now _we are friends. I paid you. I paid you _good _money."

Abruptly, Jason got up, stared Colton down until the privateer looked away, obviously still looking for an argument that'd turn the tide of the discussion.

"I like the money," Jason said. "But I got to live here. Now where's this doc? Ali you said, right?"

* * *

Contrary to every expectation, Doc Ali seemed a decent enough guy. He wasn't a real doctor, but with enough medical training somewhere in his past to play one on TV, good enough for Rook Island at least, where people weren't so nit-picky about shit like that. If somebody had the skill to save your ass while you were bleeding out in the sand, that was enough qualification. If the person in question isn't tripping hard at the time and remembered to wash their hands in the last week, it was a bonus.

Ali even had some anaesthetic, so all Jason had to worry about was being shoved back and forth while he was sewn up.

Annie was sitting with her legs folded under her on a rough bench on the wall, watching him from beyond long lashes. She didn't need to stick around after showing him to where Ali had a neat little practice set up, so Jason supposed there was something she wanted to talk about. Ali didn't seem to make her as twitchy as Colton did.

"How does it feel?" she asked, like it came out in medias res and he was somehow expected to be privy to whatever had been running through her head. If she treated Colton the same way, it'd explain the faint bruise along her jaw.

He had no idea what she was talking about. He said, "Is it about respect again?"

"No…" she started. "Although, come to think of it, it might."

She looked away from him for a moment. "I've never killed before."

Ali put a hand to Jason's forehead and manoeuvred his head to a new angle.

Jason's throat tightened at Annie's words, disjected memories floating free from his subconsciousness. He remembered the first time _he _had killed, as clear as day. It was not something he thought of often. It hadn't made him feel powerful, the opposite, in fact. It was the odd one out of all his kills.

"It's addictive," Jason finally said. "Don't start."

"Everyone here is a killer," Annie pointed out.

"Even I, by the way," Ali interjected mildly. "But don't worry about it."

Jason would have been more shocked if he weren't. He said, "You got some more painkillers? I'm fresh out."

Doc Ali side-eyed him, missing a beat in his stitching. "You're pretty shot down already, from what I can tell."

"All worn off by now."

Ali resumed his work with a slight shrug. "You are shooting Rakyat concoctions. I spent some time studying their recipes, but it's really not like I could tell you anything about interactions, side-effects or contraindications. You could have a heart attack, or a stroke, or an anaphylactic shock, or you could just OD."

"Are you giving everyone the speech?"

A harder tuck on his head and Ali stepped back. He gave a wan smile, "Only the first time. I'm not arguing with the tide."

He walked over to a cabinet and unlocked it with a key hung around his neck. "What do you want? Provided you're paying for it, that is."

It took a bit of back and forth to get Ali to part with the good stuff, despite what he had claimed, but it was mostly due to demand and how difficult it was to resupply. Lamon and his police force had only two patrol boats, not nearly enough to keep an eye on the entire coastline, but at this point in time, the privateers much preferred to avoid a fight. Bringing drugs out and weaponry in was the main event on any given night, medical supplies took second place, even the ones that could, technically, be called more the 'drug' kind of drug.

On the other hand, Jason was sitting on the pile of money Colton had given him, so it was a fairly relaxed negotiation. Annie stuck around quietly, just watching him as if she could discern some great mystery about him. He was halfway tempted to go over to her and ask what she'd discovered. It wasn't like _he _understood himself most days and today was one of the bad ones.

The first fight he had on Rook, the first time Dennis set him loose alone in the jungle, he had been lost, kept afloat on thoughts of loss and revenge. On saving everyone who could still be saved. In hindsight, things had made much more sense then.

The fight today, it had been fucked as fuck. Colton had wanted him to kill the leader, not slaughter the entire gang. And guess which one he let live, too? Colton would figure it out soon enough, once he took a look at the heads Jason had dumped on the desk.

The truth remained, though, he had been out of his depth for the first time in a long while, worse than those first awkward brawls in the jungle, because back then he had at least had an excuse.

"Has Colton asked you about Lamon?" Annie asked, trailing after him out of Ali's clinic.

"Yeah."

"Are you going to do it?"

Some new intensity came into her voice that he couldn't quite name. He turned around on his heels to regard her. The light was at her back, hiding her face and her darkened outline was oddly familiar. "That was your idea," he said. He didn't _know, _of course, but it was a good a guess as any.

She moved her head in a gesture that could have been a nod or a shake of her head. She said nothing, but shifted her weight from one foot to the other and back.

"No," he answered her question and turned away, climbed into the Jeep and tossed the bag of money and drugs on seat beside him.

"But he'll come for you," Annie said. "He…"

The deep growl of the engine as it started up cut through the conversation. It wasn't exactly by accident.

Jason said, "Maybe he'll change my mind, but I'm not getting involved in this…" he waved his hand around. "… _organisation. _I put you fuckers _down. _I'm not one of you. Get it into your heads."

"You take our money. And do you really think Lamon will care for the distinction?"

Jason bared his teeth, "I don't give a shit, okay?"

He gave her no more time to push the issue. From one moment to the next, he became really tired of the conversation. His head still hurt and his eyebrow throbbed like a living thing all its own. He pushed the gas pedal down, suddenly he couldn't leave the Compound fast enough.

* * *

The drive back to Thursten didn't do anything for his mood. The painkillers were wearing off with every bump in the road, leaving him feeling sore and tired and not just a little angry. Mostly with himself, though and it left him tense, wanting to punch something.

The heads had bled through the bag and soiled the backseat. Just what he needed on display when Lamon and his policemen eventually came around to check, something that was just a question of time, especially in light of his reputation. They'd be around and he'd better not have a stolen car with bloodstains on the backseat and a trunk full of explosives.

Annie was right, of course, it wouldn't be pretty with Lamon. Jason didn't exactly know what to expect of him, though. What was he gonna do? Put him on trial? Lock him in a cell? Rook certainly didn't have a prison worth the name, not one that Jason couldn't break out of anyway. If they brought him to the mainland, if they contacted the American embassy…well, shits.

Thursten didn't exactly have too many working street-lamps. Half of the town was lit by the Crazy Cock's gaudy advertising and most of the rest could languish in a tropical night's darkness. The only _other _well-lit building was the police station. It had been a warehouse when Jason was last in town, now fenced in and cleaned up. A guy in uniform stood at the gate, watched Jason attentively as he drove past, but had no good excuse to stop him.

Jason parked the Jeep and got out, shouldering his bag of today's loot. The room he'd rented was upstairs in what used to be a small apartment building, fallen into disrepair several decades ago. A lone light bulb flickered hysterically at the top of the stairs and helped absolutely nothing.

Jason stopped when he saw Hiwa there. By the looks of it, she had just been leaving. She carried something cradled in her arm.

"Jason! I thought you were out."

He glanced up at her. She must see him much better than the other way around, that damn lamp had nicely screwed over his night vision.

Hiwa took a few more steps down, stopped again. "You don't look good."

He thought he could do without everyone and their dog pointing it out like that. So he had taken a beating and he'd deserved it for being a stupid dickhead. Get over it, not like he couldn't give as good as he got. Give _better. _

"I was looking for you," Hiwa continued. She lifted up what she held in her hand. "I brought you a jug of sato. It's my uncle's secret recipe. I'm sure you'll like it."

Jason climbed the rest of the stairs and took the small jug when she offered it to him. "Thanks," he said, somewhat belatedly. He pushed past her and walked for his padlocked door, fishing the key from his pocket. Good thing he'd not lost it, otherwise he'd have to smash in his own door and henceforth live with even less privacy than before, plus any damn fucker could wander in and help himself to his stash.

"I was wondering…" Hiwa began, still standing on the edge of the stairs.

The door swung open a crack. The low whirring of the fan from inside indicated he was having electricity. What you know, things were looking up. Jason glanced down the hallway. No matter what she thought of him, Hiwa, standing there like that, _she _looked good enough to eat and he was hungry.

"If you aren't going to put out, maybe you should leave."

It made her freeze on the spot and even the stupid flickering light was good enough to see the deep blush crawl up her throat and settle on her cheeks, burning there.

Jason tapped the door with his boot so it swung open wider, but leaned his shoulder against the wall at its side, looking back at Hiwa while she tried to make up her mind. Directness of this type didn't always go over well, especially in Asia. The Rakyat were more open, but the normal people — for what constituted normal on Rook — were still pretty easy to offend. He wasn't even sure if he wanted her to stay. It'd be far easier if she got away and left him to work out his frustration and residue anger on his own.

The blush didn't go away, but she smiled, "I was going to ask if you had any other plans for tonight. In other words, that was the plan?"

So much for Asian shyness, Jason thought, but the blushing was a nice touch.

* * *

It's a good thing pain doesn't render him useless, otherwise this would have been very short and _very _embarrassing, but pain's always just made him more aware, sharpened his senses instead of dulling them. There is still the fight in his blood, the distant, crashing wave roaring in his ears, fading with time and distance, but easy to reach for and tease back, it's never far anyway.

Hiwa is different, not a Californian girl, smaller and so soft. Everything about her is soft, skin and tongue all. She has a way to _yield_ into the thin mattress of his narrow bed. She _melts _around him, under him, so welcoming. He can't hurt her, can't roughly drive out his demons the way he's tried to do back in LA, can't just screw her through the floor or the wall until they are both too worn out to keep going.

Her fingers make the pain from his wounds and bruises bleed away into nothing but slow-burning heat, pressing down around them, actual weight to fight against, something to claw into, something to hold.

He pulls her in, harder than he had wanted to, but she goes with it, splays her legs around his hips, arms around his necks, and there is some sharpness in how her fingers dig into his skin. He knows he'll leave faint bruises on her ass as he cants her hips, feels her thighs tense. It was _good, _but this is better. An edge, so he can define himself against it, something to leap and fall from.

* * *

At some point in the night, the electricity cut out again and the fan stopped working. The room was stuffy and hot, blankets still damp from the night, skin still covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

Jason woke being the big spoon. Not like there was much of a choice, the bed wasn't big enough for both of them in any other position without the metal bed-frame digging unrelenting into some sore body part. It was uncomfortable like this, but he couldn't quite bring himself to move. His arm was still asleep, too, wedged under Hiwa and still resting intimately close down her belly. He'd eventually get around to flexing those fingers back to life. Maybe when the rest of him was fully awake.

On the downside, his body still ached.

He drifted for a bit, chasing these points of pains through his body, assessing each one to how much it would hinder him in the next fight. He wasn't keen on a repeat of last time. Still, maybe he really _should _think about what he wanted to do. He had thought, back in LA, everything would be fine if only he could get back to Rook, but it wasn't, because it wasn't over. Of course he could just take it all day to day, hunt and fight when the opportunity came up. He didn't think there'd ever be a shortage of either, but was it going to be enough?

Somewhere, at the back of his mind, he knew he didn't want the Rakyat to cut him out. He was one of them, everything he had done should have proved it. He had fixed his mistake with Liza, hadn't he? It had been far too late to save Citra and make it good, but he could still lead the Rakyat to glory in her name and memory. Why didn't Dennis see that? Let him do his thing and all of Rook would be theirs. No privateers and crazy pirates and no police, either. Nothing would stop them and, at the end, Rook would be paradise. The real deal, this time, not the touristic mockery the government wanted it to be.

And then, when all that was done, he could rest finally. He'd be free of all these urges and the hunger, he would be at peace without blood dripping from his hands, because he had proven himself beyond any doubt.

He heard the click before the fan started up again, it's humming unexpectedly loud all of a sudden, like a landing chopper in his living room. The end of his belt snagged on a fan-blade, adding an aggravating irregularity to the noise. Hiwa stirred a little, pushed back against him without waking up. He nuzzled his face into her hair, it smelled of soap and saltwater.

It was early morning, the light filtering through the drawn shutters wasn't harsh enough, too early for most people to be about and when Jason's sharp ears picked up someone climbing the stairs he immediately tensed. Out of instinct rather than habit he still needed to regain. It sounded like one person, too light to be heavily armed and walking slowly. Jason pulled his head away from Hiwa, lifted it up so he could listen better. The footsteps stopped for a long moment, then resumed.

By the time the knock on his door came, Jason had already began wriggling free of Hiwa, slipping away from where he had been wedged between her and the wall.

It wasn't locked, his thoughts had been elsewhere by the time he had got around to close that door.

Another knock and then another sound, heavier and lower than the knock, as if someone was leaning with their whole body into the door.

Walking past, Jason pulled his belt from the fan and pulled the hunting knife from the holster there before he went to the door.

"What…?" Hiwa asked, sitting up groggily and rubbing a hand down her face.

He waved her to silence and opened the door carefully, angling himself so he couldn't get it slapped in his face if it came to that. He had been right, someone was leaning on the outside, but pulled away when the door began to open.

"Shit," was all Jason could think of.

Annie was looking back at him from wide, animal eyes. Her clothes were soaked in blood, most of dried to a far more underwhelming brown. It was impossible to tell how much of it was hers, though probably not all of it or she wouldn't be standing there at all. The left side of her face was swollen, battered blue even on her dark skin.

She held a Makarov in her shaking hand, fingers cramped so tightly around it, Jason suspected you'd have to break them to take the gun from her. At least she didn't seem to be in any state to be using it. She barely had the energy to flinch when Jason's hand shot forth, gripped her by the arm and pulled her inside roughly.

He took the time to glance up and down the hallway. There was no one there, but Annie had apparently been walking through Thursten before she got here, and people this bloodied were rare even for this god-forsaken hellpit of an island.

Hiwa made a noise of surprise, but Annie just stood there, too shocked to even blink.

"Sit down," Jason told her. He stashed his knife in the doorway and went in search of his pants.

He was vaguely grateful that Hiwa had a better sense of what to do with someone who looked this shellshocked. In the time it took Jason to get back into his cargoes, Hiwa was fully dressed, had sat Annie down on the bed and managed to gently coax the gun from her hands.

"Do you have water?" Hiwa asked. "I can't tell whether she's injured."

"I'm…" Annie said. "… fine."

"Yeah, right," Jason said. He didn't have _running _water, but he had a canister of drinking water. "What the fuck happened? And what are you doing here?"

Jason picked up the Makarov, it's magazine was empty. He looked up from the gun at Annie, who seemed to gradually sink back into herself the more she relaxed. She reacted sluggishly, looking away from Hiwa and at Jason, her face a perfect blank.

"You have to help me."

"I can give you more ammo," Jason offered and earned a sharp look from Hiwa. "Get out of the spray next time."

Hiwa got to her feet and put a reassuring hand on Annie's shoulder, who barely flinched at the contact this time. Hiwa had managed to get most of the blood from her face and throat. She didn't seem to have any other injuries other than bruises. The blood couldn't be hers, then.

"I'm going to fetch some ice," Hiwa said. She left, carefully slipping through the door without opening it further than necessary.

Jason lowered the gun and watched Annie, tilted his head a little as he regarded her. "What happened?" he asked again.

After a moment of obviously trying to order her thoughts, Annie focused her gaze on him. She seemed to calm gradually, each breath she took bringing a little more colour back into her face. "It's your fault."

Jason pulled his eyebrows up. "Really?" he asked.

"You…" Annie started, the words tumbling from her, picking up speed as she spoke. "Colton thought it… he… I told him to ask you to… you could take down Lamon. And you said no and he thinks… he thought, now you're angry. And he was afraid. Of you and of Lamon and of… and he thought his men don't respect him. He needed to… he needed a victory."

"He blamed you?" Jason asked. "And you shot him."

Annie blinked slowly, her jaw working. "It was self-defence."

Jason shrugged. "Hey, I'm not judging. Everyone's got a bullet with their name on it."

She shook her head, took a deep breath and finally pulled her head back up, looking at him with newfound intensity and strength slowly seeping into her voice. "I need your help," she said. "I want…" Her voice cut out and a shiver went through her body. She wrapped her arms around herself, unclenching her jaw with some effort so she could say, "I want the Compound."

Jason crossed his arms over his chest, swivelled to the side so he could lean his hip into the edge of the table. He tapped the barrel of the Makarov against his chin thoughtfully. "Why?" he asked. He could be asking how she thought she'd be paying him, but that probably wasn't important. If he _did _take the Compound, the safe in Hoyt's old office would be his for the taking anyway. He could be wondering how the fuck he would do it all on his own, but he wasn't worried. It'd be bloody and hard, one hell of a fight. He could die so easily. But then, they all could, at any given time. Hiwa could just as easily have stabbed him last night and he'd never have been the wiser.

So, _why. _It was the more interesting question. The more sensible thing for her to want would be a way home, a way out of this hell. Instead, she had chosen to stick around, trying to make it hers. He could respect that, if nothing else.

"Why not?" she asked back.

Another knock on the door interrupted him. Short and clipped. Annie's eyes widened in new shock. Jason caught her gaze as he detached himself from the table. He mouthed _get over there _and pointed with one hand. The corner of the room that'd take her out of the line of sight from the door.

Annie pulled herself together, body still shaking, but she complied.

Jason went to the door and opened it, ready to go for the knife there.

Three uniformed policemen stood outside, all of them stiffly straight and with a slight, very polite smile plastered on their faces. The policeman in the middle executed a faint bow. The tip of his cap barely reached Jason's eye-level and the man was slim, still young and so perfectly clean-shaven he must be doing it on the mainland because no one on Rook bothered. Sharp dark eyes studied Jason, seemed to be taking in everything about him in less than a second.

"I apologise for interrupting so early," he said in perfect English. "I'm Lamon Jurangpati, Chief Commissioner of Rook Island Municipal Police."

"What can I do for you?" Jason asked with a casualness fake all the way through. Shit, like, what the hell _timing_?

"Tourists are required to register at the police station upon arrival," Lamon said. "It is for their own safety until the islands have been pacified. Your landlord should have informed you."

"He must've forgotten," Jason said tonelessly. His landlord had been a little on the petrified side, being a former privateer and all.

One of the police-officers handed Lamon a brochure, who then offered it to Jason. "Here is all the information you will need."

"Thank you?" Jason took the brochure and eyed it, not sure what to do with it. _Welcome to Rook Island. _

"You have been here for a week?" Lamon asked as if he didn't know.

"Eight days."

"I see," Lamon said with short thoughtfulness. "May I see your passport, please?"

Oh that was going to be great. Because he did have a passport but he hadn't come to the country in any way that gave him a damned visa. He hadn't exactly expected to _need _it. This was fucking Rook Island, it was run by criminals and populated by crazies and addicts! No one here had a damned _visa. _

"I lost it," Jason said, somewhat meekly. "On the beach. Yesterday."

There was nothing to read in Lamon's face, no clue whether he believed it or not. Only that vague little smile that might mean anything. He nodded slowly. "I'm afraid you'll have to accompany me to the police station. I'm sure you'll understand."

Jason took a deep breath. At this point, he'd do everything so Lamon didn't get it into his head to look inside his apartment. Or his car, come to think of it. Any way he looked at it, he wasn't going to get out of this easily. Should have taken Colton's offer.

"Can I check by later?" Jason asked and forced an innocent smile on his face. "I just woke up and I'm a little hungover."

Lamon's eyes narrowed by the smallest increment. "Unfortunately, that's not possible. Please be dressed."

Jason took a few seconds, trying to stare him down, but gave up. He drew back inside, said, "All right, give me a minute."

He closed the door in their faces and leaned against it from the inside. Annie met his gaze from across the room, but he wasn't quite sure which of them looked more terrified in that moment. He didn't deal too well with situations he couldn't shoot himself out of these days.

Well, _shit. _

* * *

_End of Chapter 3_

* * *

There is a _Fight Club_ **reference**.

**All the NOTES: **I'm not sure how Medicine is supposed to work. Of the three plants that give you green leaves, only Aloe would be much use, though only applied externally to a wound, not when shot up your arm. Arrowroot is basically starch. Screwpine doesn't seem to have any medical properties at all. While it's possible (and even likely) Rook has some unusual variants of these, I'm fairly sure it's a bad case of game mechanic. Additionally, there is no plant in existence that can save you when you are riddled with bulletholes. I've decided to interpret the 'Medicine' syringe as a type of painkiller, because it seems to make the most sense. Nearly instant relief from pain would enable one to keep fighting, after all, and wounds can be treated properly later.

_Sato_: a type of Thai rice 'wine' (it's actually more like beer), no idea where the rice is coming from, we probably don't want to know, either.

Note on _**Rook's geography**_ and **_population_**: It's somewhere in the pacific and it's got a mainland somewhere that it belongs to. Take your pick. As for it's population, I'm going to stick with what Dennis said: It attracts people from everywhere and it's population is as multi-national as can be. Same goes for pirates and privateers.

**Grenades** shouldn't go off like that, but I'm pretty sure they haven't been stored with much care and wouldn't be in the most reliable state.

I have no idea how Jason got _any _action with that type of pick-up line. I don't find him that attractive, either. (nice body, though.)

You have _no_ idea how much I _**hate**_ writing sex from a male perspective. And just to make it worse, this one's pretty vanilla. Kinky sex is easier to write because it gives you more stuff to talk about. We're getting there, too, don't worry.

It's weird having to pay attention to the gender of OCs. I usually don't, I just decide on role/personality and than pick their gender at random and I tend to write gender-neutral anyway.

_I _was_ going to tear myself a new one over my inability to write Jason, but maybe that'd be a tactical mistake all things considered and this auhor's note is already too long. _

* * *

**THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR ALL THE LOVELY REVIEWS!** I don't think I've ever had that many after just two chapters! It's an immense boost. (Of course, now I'm even more scared I'll disappoint you all, but that's something I need to deal with on my own.)


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